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Each episode follows the adventures of Patrick Clifton, a friendly country postman, and his "black and white cat" Jess, as he delivers the post through the valley of Greendale. Although he initially concentrates on delivering his letters, he nearly always becomes distracted by a concern of one of the villagers, and is always keen to help resolve their problems. Notable villagers include the postmistress, Mrs. Goggins; Alfred and Dorothy Thompson, the farmers; PC Selby, the police constable; Pat and Sara Clifton; Jeff Pringle, the teacher; Ajay Bains, driver of the Greendale Rocket and Pencaster Flyer; Nisha Bains, the owner of the cafe; and the local handyman and inventor, Ted Glen. 

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Dirk Gently, who calls himself a "holistic detective", has happened upon what he thinks is a rather comfortable situation. A wealthy man in the record industry has retained him, spinning a story about being stalked by a seven-foot-tall, green-eyed, scythe-wielding monster. Dirk pretends to understand the man's ravings involving potatoes and a contract signed in blood coming due; when in reality, Dirk is musing about what he might do if he actually receives payment for his "services" – such as getting rid of his refrigerator, which is so filthy inside that it has become the centrepiece of a show-down between himself and his cleaning woman. The seriousness of his client's claims becomes clear when Dirk arrives several hours late for an appointment to find a swarm of police around his client's estate. The aforementioned client is found in a sealed and heavily barricaded room, his head neatly removed several feet from his body and rotating on a turn-table. While at his recently deceased client's house, he discovers that his client had a son. However, after Dirk disconnects the television set the boy had been watching, the boy promptly breaks Dirk's nose. Nearly incapacitated by guilt, Dirk resolves to take his now-late client's wild claims seriously. During his investigation, Gently encounters exploding airport check-in counters, the gods of Norse mythology (particularly Odin and Thor), insulting horoscopes, a sinister nursing home, a rhino-phagic eagle, an I Ching calculator (to which everything calculated above the value of 4 is apparently 'a suffusion of yellow'), a god who gives his powers to a lawyer and an advertising executive in exchange for clean linen, and Kate Schechter, an American woman who gets angry when she can't get pizza delivered in London. 

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Tung Chien is a Vietnamese bureaucrat in a world that has been conquered by Chinese-style atheist communism, where the population is kept docile with hallucinogenic drugs. When a street vendor gives Tung an illegal anti-hallucinogen, he discovers that the Party leader has a horrible secret. 

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The first person narrator of the novel is an unnamed medical doctor turned politician (called Dr Stephen Fleming in the Louis Malle film) whose promotion from MP to cabinet member is imminent. Just then the MP is casually introduced to his grown-up son's enigmatic girlfriend Anna and helplessly falls for her. For as long as it lasts, Martyn, his son, has no idea that his father is having an extramarital affair with his girlfriend (and later fiancée), and Anna does not seem to mind being a young man's partner and simultaneously his father's lover and object of desire. The MP enjoys a brief period of sexual bliss, meeting Anna in various European cities and having sex with her in unlikely places. Eventually, she buys them a small flat in central London where they meet on a regular basis. On the day before his wedding to Anna, her stepfather, whom she is close to has a heart attack, and Martyn while looking for her, finds the address to her secret flat. He climbs up a flight of stairs to the top floor, opens the unlocked door to the apartment, and is shocked to see his father making love to his fiancée. Dazed and utterly confused, he tumbles backwards, hits the low banister and falls down the stairwell. The MP runs down the stairs completely naked, finding Martyn dead, sprawled out on the ground floor. He kneels on the floor and clutches Martyn's body to him until the police arrive. In the final scene, the MP, stripped of his political office and living abroad as a recluse, sits in his solitary room staring at oversized photographs of Anna and Martyn on the wall. Category:1991 British novels Category:Adultery in novels Category:English novels Category:British novels adapted into films Category:British political novels 

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Mario has a dream of a staircase leading to a door to another world. A voice identifies the world as the dreamland of Subcon, and asks for Mario's help in defeating the villainous frog named Wart, a tyrant who has cursed Subcon and its people. Mario suddenly awakes and decides to tell Luigi, Toad and Princess Peach, who all report experiencing the same dream. The group decides to go on a picnic, but upon arriving, they discover a cave with a long staircase. Through a door at the top, the group gets transported to Subcon, revealing their dreams to have been real. After defeating Wart, the people of Subcon are freed and the group celebrates, but Mario suddenly awakes in his bed, unsure if the events that took place were real or just a dream. 

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In April 2054, Washington, DC's prototype PreCrime police department stops murderers before they act, reducing the murder rate to zero percent. Murders are predicted using specialized mutated humans, called "Precogs", who "previsualize" crimes by receiving visions of the future. Would-be murderers are imprisoned in a benevolent virtual reality. The federal government is on the verge of adopting the controversial program nationwide. Since the disappearance of his son Sean, PreCrime Captain John Anderton (Tom Cruise) has separated from his wife Lara (Kathryn Morris) and became a drug addict. While United States Department of Justice agent Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell) is auditing the program, the Precogs generate a new prediction, stating Anderton will murder a man he does not know named Leo Crow in 36 hours. Anderton flees the area as Witwer begins a manhunt. Anderton seeks the advice of Dr. Iris Hineman (Lois Smith), the creator of PreCrime technology. She reveals that sometimes one of the Precogs, usually Agatha (Samantha Morton), has a different vision than the other two; a "minority report" of a possible alternate future. This has been kept a secret as it would damage the system's credibility. Anderton resolves to recover the minority report to prove his innocence. Anderton goes to a black market doctor for a risky eye transplant to avoid the citywide optical recognition system. He returns to PreCrime and kidnaps Agatha, shutting down the system, as the Precogs operate as a group mind. Anderton takes Agatha to a hacker to extract the minority report of Leo Crow (Mike Binder), but none exists; instead, Agatha shows him an image of the murder of Ann Lively (Jessica Harper), a woman who was drowned by a hooded figure five years prior. Anderton and Agatha go to Crow's hotel room as the 36-hour time nears, finding numerous photos of children, including one of Sean. Crow arrives and Anderton prepares to kill him, accusing him of being a serial child killer. Agatha talks Anderton out of shooting Crow - barely - by telling him that he has the ability to choose his future now that he is aware of it. Crow, however, begs to be killed, having been hired by an unknown entity to plant the photos and be killed in exchange for his family's financial well being. Crow grabs Anderton's gun and pulls the trigger, killing himself as Agatha watches in horror. Anderton and Agatha flee to Lara's house outside the city for refuge. There they learn Lively was Agatha's drug-addicted mother who sold her to PreCrime. Lively had sobered up and attempted to reclaim Agatha, but was murdered. Anderton realizes he is being targeted for knowing about Lively's existence and her connection to Agatha. Witwer, studying Crow's death, suspects Anderton is being framed. He examines the footage of Lively's murder and finds there were two attempts on her life, the first having been stopped by PreCrime but the second, occurring seconds later, having succeeded. Witwer reports this to the director and founder of PreCrime, Lamar Burgess (Max von Sydow), but Burgess responds by killing Witwer using Anderton's gun. With the Precogs still offline, the murder is undetected. Lara had earlier called Burgess, revealing that Anderton is with her. Anderton is captured, accused of both murders, and imprisoned after being fitted with the brain device that puts him into a dreamlike sleep. Agatha is reconnected to the PreCrime system. While attempting to comfort Lara, Burgess accidentally reveals himself as Lively's murderer. Lara frees Anderton, who then exposes Burgess at a PreCrime celebratory banquet by playing the full video of Agatha's vision of Burgess killing Lively. A new report is generated at PreCrime, indicating that Burgess will kill Anderton. In a confrontation with Anderton, Burgess admits that PreCrime could not function without Agatha; he killed Lively following an actual attempt on her life that he had arranged, knowing that the murder would appear as an echo within PreCrime and be ignored. Anderton points out the dilemma Burgess now faces: he can kill Anderton and validate PreCrime at the cost of his own life, or he can spare Anderton and allow the program to be discredited and shut down. The flaw in the system, Anderton notes, is that people can change their future once they become aware of it. Burgess commits suicide. Afterwards, the PreCrime system is shut down. All the prisoners are pardoned and released, although many remain under police surveillance for years. Anderton and Lara reconcile and prepare for the birth of a new child, and the Precogs are sent away to an undisclosed location to live their lives in peace. 

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Duncan Makenzie is the latest generation of the 'first family' of Titan, a colonised moon of Saturn. Originally settled by his grandfather Malcolm Makenzie in the early 23rd century, Titan's economy has flourished based on the harvest and sale of hydrogen mined from the atmosphere, which is used to fuel the fusion engines of interplanetary spacecraft. As the plot opens in 2276, a number of factors are combining to make a diplomatic visit to the 'mother world' of Earth a necessity. Firstly, the forthcoming 500th anniversary of US Independence, which is bringing in colonists from the entire Solar System, obviously needs a suitable representative from Titan. Secondly, the Makenzie family carry a fatal damaged gene that means any normal continuation of the family line is impossible—so both Duncan and his "father" Colin are clones of his "grandfather" Malcolm. Human cloning is a mature technology but is even at this time ethically controversial. And thirdly, technological advances in spacecraft drive systems — specifically the 'asymptotic drive' which improves the specific impulse and thrust by orders of magnitude — means that Titan's whole economy is under threat as the demand for hydrogen is about to collapse. The human aspects of the tale center mainly on the intense infatuation (largely unrequited but not unconsummated) that the two main male characters, Duncan and Karl Helmer, develop for the vividly characterized Catherine Linden Ellerman (Calindy), a visitor to Titan from Earth in their youth, and its lifelong consequences. A number of other sub-plots suggest some sort of greater mystery, but remain unexplored. The book ends with him returning home with his new "child" Malcolm (who is a clone of his dead friend Karl), leaving the other plot threads dangling. 

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The plays follows the relationship between a 26-year-old Liverpudlian working class hairdresser and Frank, a middle-aged university lecturer, during the course of a year.Act 1 consists of seven scenes running from January to May, and Act 2 a further seven running from September to December. Source: Programme for run at Liverpool Playhouse, 1981 In the play Frank has no surname, but when the film was made he became Dr. Frank Bryant. Susan (who initially calls herself Rita), dissatisfied with the routine of her work and social life, seeks inner growth by signing up for and attending an Open University course in English Literature. The play opens as 'Rita' meets her tutor, Frank, for the first time. Frank is a middle-aged, alcoholic career academic who has taken on the tutorship to pay for his drink. The two have an immediate and profound effect on one another; Frank is impressed by Susan's verve and earnestness and is forced to re-examine his attitudes and position in life; Susan finds Frank's tutelage opens doors to a bohemian lifestyle and a new self-confidence. However, Frank's bitterness and cynicism return as he notices Susan beginning to adopt the pretensions of the university culture he despises. Susan becomes disillusioned by a friend's attempted suicide and realises that her new social niche is rife with the same dishonesty and superficiality she had previously sought to escape. The play ends as Frank, sent to Australia on a sabbatical, welcomes the possibilities of the change. 

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In the 22nd century, rising sea levels from global warming have wiped out coastal cities, reducing the world's population. Mecha, humanoid robots seemingly capable of complex thought but lacking in emotions, have been created. In Madison, New Jersey, David, a prototype Mecha child capable of experiencing love, is given to Henry Swinton and his wife Monica, whose son Martin contracted a rare disease and has been placed in suspended animation. Monica feels uneasy with David, but eventually warms to him and activates his imprinting protocol, causing him to have an enduring childlike love for her. David seeks to have Monica express the same love towards him. David is befriended by Teddy, a robotic teddy bear which belonged to Martin. Martin is unexpectedly cured of his disease and brought home. Martin becomes jealous of David, and taunts him to perform worrisome acts, such as cutting off locks of Monica's hair while she is sleeping. At a pool party, one of Martin's friends pokes David with a knife, triggering his self-protection programming. David grabs onto Martin, and they both fall into the pool. Martin is saved before he drowns, and Henry convinces Monica to return David to his creators to be destroyed. On the way there, Monica has a change of heart and spares David from destruction by leaving him in the woods. With Teddy as his only companion, David recalls The Adventures of Pinocchio and decides to find the Blue Fairy so that she may turn him into a real boy, which he believes will win back Monica's love. David and Teddy are captured by a Flesh Fair, where obsolete Mecha are destroyed before jeering crowds. David is nearly destroyed himself and pleads for his life. The audience, deceived by David's realistic nature, revolts and allows David to escape alongside Gigolo Joe, a male prostitute Mecha on the run from authorities after being charged with murder. David, Teddy and Joe go to the decadent resort town of Rouge City, where "Dr. Know", a holographic answer engine, directs them to the top of Rockefeller Center in the flooded ruins of Manhattan and has also provided fairy tale information interpreted by David as suggesting that a Blue Fairy has the power to help him. Above the ruins of Manhattan, David meets Professor Hobby, his creator, who tells him that their meeting demonstrates David's ability to love and desire. David finds many copies of himself, including a female variant Darlene, boxed and ready to be shipped. Disheartened by his lost sense of individuality, David attempts suicide by falling from a skyscraper into the ocean. While underwater, David catches sight of a figure resembling the Blue Fairy before Joe rescues him in an amphibious aircraft. Before David can explain, Joe is captured via electromagnet by authorities. David and Teddy take control of the aircraft to see the Fairy, which turns out to be a statue from an attraction on Coney Island. The two become trapped when the Wonder Wheel falls on their vehicle. Believing the Blue Fairy to be real, David asks the statue to turn him into a real boy, and repeats this request until his internal power source is depleted. Two thousand years later, humans are extinct and Manhattan is buried under glacial ice. The Mecha have evolved into an advanced form called Specialists, and have become interested in learning about humanity. They find and revive David and Teddy. David walks to the frozen Blue Fairy statue, which collapses when he touches it. The Specialists reconstruct the Swinton family home from David's memories and explain to him, via an interactive image of the Blue Fairy, that it is impossible to make David a real boy. However, at David's insistence, they recreate Monica through genetic material from the strand of hair that Teddy kept. This Monica can live for only one day, and the process cannot be repeated. David spends his happiest day with Monica, and as she falls asleep in the evening, she tells David that she has always loved him: "the everlasting moment he had been waiting for", the narrator says. David falls asleep as well and goes to that place "where dreams are born". 

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The show is centered on two 12-year-old girls from very different backgrounds, Hannah and Grace, who are best friends. Hannah is from a middle class Jewish family and lives with her parents, her grandmother, and her uncle. Her parents are the owners of a furniture factory in the fictitious town of Ashmore, North Carolina, to where they have recently moved from Chicago. Grace is from a wealthy Catholic family and lives with her mother, a socialite. Typically, they are depicted as more intelligent, thoughtful, funny, and rebellious than other children of their age. Set in 1965, the show was compared by some to another look-back-through- the-years show, The Wonder Years. Fred Savage, the star of that hit ABC series, even appeared in the series' final episode. The theme song is the original version of "Do You Believe in Magic" by The Lovin' Spoonful. The show was taped at Ren-Mar Studios stage 4. 

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Debbie Benton (Bambi Woods), captain of her high school cheerleading squad, has been accepted to try out for the Texas Cowgirls. Her parents disapprove and refuse to pay her fare to Texas. In a bid to help Debbie, her squadmates Lisa (Georgette Sanders), Roberta (Misty Winter), Tammy (Arcadia Lake), Pat (Kasey Rodgers), and Annie (Jenny Cole) decide to accompany her to Texas. With two weeks to raise the money, they swear off sexual activity with their boyfriends and form a company, called Teen Services. Tammy takes a job in the local record store run by Tony (Tony Mansfield). Debbie gets a job at a sports store run by Mr. Greenfield (Richard Bolla). Roberta convinces Mr. Hardwick (Eric Edwards) to give her a job at the candle store with Mrs. Hardwick (Robyn Bird). Rikki (Sherri Tart) and Annie agree to wash Mr. Bradly's car. The football team is annoyed by a lack of sex. Roberta's boyfriend Rick (David Morris) and his teammates join Roberta and Pat in the showers, where they have group sex. While working for Mr. Greenfield at the sports store, Debbie is talked into allowing Mr. Greenfield to see her breasts for $10 and fondle her breasts for another $10. Then, he sucks them for an additional $20. Realizing they will not be able to raise enough money by legitimate means, Debbie convinces the other girls to engage in sexual activities for more money. They agree, but only if it is on their terms. After Roberta is caught masturbating around Mrs. Hardwick, Roberta engages in sexual activity with Mr. and Mrs. Hardwick, earning extra money. Rikki and Annie go to see Mr. Bradly (David Suton), to wash his car. Mr. Bradly is not home, but they wash his car anyway. When Mr. Bradly returns home, he asks them in to dry off their wet clothes. They undress for him for $10 each. He performs cunnilingus on them, and then has anal sex with Annie. At the library, Donna (Merril Townsend) flirts with Mr. Biddle, the librarian. Visiting her at work, her boyfriend Tim (Bill Barry) tries to have sex with her. She fellates him but is caught by Mr. Biddle (Jack Teague). Donna allows him to spank her to prevent him from telling her parents. Hamilton (Peter Lerman) and his friend Ashly (Ben Pierce) are in the tennis club sauna after a tennis game, and Hamilton convinces Lisa to fellate him while Ashly penetrates her. At the record store, Tammy has been avoiding Tony's advances; she calls Lisa, who joins them at the record store. Lisa offers Tony "anything" and she begins to fellate him, and then Tammy joins in, and he ejaculates on Tammy's breasts. In the final scene, Debbie arrives at Mr. Greenfield's store after hours, in a Texas Cowgirls uniform as he requested. Greenfield, dressed as Joe Namath, reveals his dream of being the quarterback who made love to the head cheerleader, and she obliges. She fellates him, and he penetrates her vagina with his finger and performs cunnilingus on her. Then they engage in vaginal sex, first in the missionary position, then doggy style, and then with Debbie on top. They finish in the missionary position with Mr. Greenfield pulling out right before ejaculating. 

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Buckaroo Banzai and his mentor Dr. Tohichi Hikita perfect the "oscillation overthruster", a device that allows an object to pass through solid matter. Banzai tests it by driving his Jet Car through a mountain. While passing through it he finds himself in another dimension, and on returning to his normal dimension, discovers an alien organism has attached itself to his car. A television news story of Banzai's success is seen by Dr. Emilio Lizardo, incarcerated at the Trenton Home for the Criminally Insane. In 1938, Lizardo and Hikita had built a prototype overthruster, but Lizardo tested it before it was ready, and became stuck between dimensions. Though he is eventually freed, being stuck between dimensions apparently allowed him to be possessed by Red Lectroids. Realizing that Banzai has succeeded in passing through the 8th dimension, Lizardo breaks out of the asylum. Banzai and his band, "The Hong Kong Cavaliers," are performing at a nightclub when Banzai interrupts their musical intro to address a depressed and suicidal woman in the audience, Penny Priddy. During a song he performs especially for her, she attempts suicide, which is mistaken for an assassination attempt on Banzai. After bailing her out of jail, he realizes she is the long-lost twin sister of his late wife. Later, Banzai holds a press conference to discuss his rocket car experience, the overthruster, and the specimen of alien/transdimensional life he obtained while traveling through the 8th dimension. Banzai is called away to the phone, where he receives an electrical shock. At the same time, strange men disrupt the event and kidnap Hikita. When Banzai returns, the electrical shock he received enables him to see these men as reptilian humanoids, and he gives chase. He rescues Hikita and they manage to evade the men long enough to be picked up by Banzai's allies. Banzai and the Cavaliers return to the Banzai Institute, where they are met by John Parker, a messenger from John Emdall, the leader of the peaceful Black Lectroids of Planet 10. Emdall, currently in Earth's orbit, explains that they had been at war with the hostile Red Lectroids for years, and managed to banish them to the eighth dimension. Lizardo's failed test of the overthruster in 1938 allowed the Red Lectroids' leader, John Whorfin, to take over Lizardo's mind and enable several dozen others to escape. Now that Banzai has perfected the overthruster, Emdall fears Whorfin and his allies will try to acquire it to free the other Red Lectroids. Emdall tasks Banzai with stopping Whorfin; if he doesn't, the Black Lectroids will fake a nuclear explosion in Russia to trigger an atomic war, annihilating the Red Lectroids on Earth in the ensuing World War III. The Cavaliers track the Red Lectroids to Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems in New Jersey. They realize that the Red Lectroids' arrival in 1938 was foretold by Orson Welles's broadcast of The War of the Worlds, though afterwards the Red Lectroids forced him to state it was a work of fiction. Yoyodyne has been building a spacecraft to cross over to the eighth dimension under the pretext of building a new United States Air Force bomber. While the Cavaliers are planning their response, Red Lectroids break into the Banzai Institute and kidnap Penny, and (unbeknownst to the Red Lectroids) the overthruster, which was in her possession. At Yoyodyne, Penny refuses to tell the Red Lectroids where the overthruster is, and they begin torturing her. Banzai enters Yoyodyne headquarters alone; the Cavaliers follow, reinforced by several groups of the Blue Blaze Irregulars, a group of youngsters recruited to assist the Cavaliers when necessary. Banzai saves Penny and fights off the Red Lectroids, though she is wounded and unconscious. While the Cavaliers tend to her, Banzai and Parker sneak into a pod on the spacecraft. Lacking Banzai's overthruster, Whorfin insists they use his imperfect model, which fails to make the dimensional transition; instead the Red Lectroid spaceship breaks through the Yoyodyne wall and takes off into the atmosphere. Lord Whorfin ejects the pod with Banzai and Parker from the craft, but they manage to activate it and use its weapon systems to destroy Whorfin and the other Red Lectroids. Banzai parachutes back to Earth while Parker returns to his people in the pod. With the situation resolved and war averted, Banzai finds Penny has died from her injuries. When he goes to give her a final kiss, Emdall gives Banzai another brief shock, reviving her. 

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Illustration of Prince Prospero confronting the "Red Death" by Arthur Rackham, 1935 The story takes place at the castellated abbey of the "happy and dauntless and sagacious" Prince Prospero. Prospero and 1,000 other nobles have taken refuge in this walled abbey to escape the Red Death, a terrible plague with gruesome symptoms that has swept over the land. Victims are overcome by "sharp pains", "sudden dizziness", and "profuse bleeding at the pores", and die within half an hour. Prospero and his court are indifferent to the sufferings of the population at large; they intend to await the end of the plague in luxury and safety behind the walls of their secure refuge, having welded the doors shut. Prospero holds a masquerade ball one night to entertain his guests in seven colored rooms of the abbey. Each of the first six rooms is decorated and illuminated in a specific color: blue, purple, green, orange, white, and violet. The last room is decorated in black and is illuminated by a scarlet light, "a deep blood color" cast from its stained glass windows. Because of this chilling pairing of colors, very few guests are brave enough to venture into the seventh room. A large ebony clock stands in this room and ominously chimes each hour, upon which everyone stops talking or dancing and the orchestra stops playing. Once the chiming stops, everyone immediately resumes the masquerade. At the chiming of midnight, the revelers and Prospero notice a figure in a dark, blood- splattered robe resembling a funeral shroud. The figure's mask resembles the rigid face of a corpse and exhibits the traits of the Red Death. Gravely insulted, Prospero demands to know the identity of the mysterious guest so they can hang him. The guests, too afraid to approach the figure, instead let him pass through the six chambers. The Prince pursues him with a drawn dagger and corners the guest in the seventh room. When the figure turns to face him, the Prince lets out a sharp cry and falls dead. The enraged and terrified revelers surge into the black room and forcibly remove the mask and robe, only to find to their horror that there is nothing underneath. Only then do they realize the costume was empty and all of the guests contract and succumb to the disease. The final line of the story sums up, "And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all." 

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On February 1, TV weatherman Phil Connors reassures his Pittsburgh viewers that an approaching blizzard will miss Western Pennsylvania. Alongside his producer Rita Hanson and cameraman Larry, Phil travels to Punxsutawney for his annual coverage of the Groundhog Day festivities. Phil makes no secret of his contempt for the assignment, the small town, and the "hicks" who live there, asserting that he will soon be leaving his station for a new job. alt=A white house with green roof. It is set back from a lawn and surrounded by bare trees On February 2, Phil awakens in the Cherry Tree Inn to Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe" playing on the clock radio. He gives a half-hearted performance reporting on the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil and the festivities. Despite Phil's prediction, the blizzard strikes the area, preventing all travel out of the town. Phil desperately searches for a way to leave but is forced to spend the night in Punxsutawney. The next morning, Phil wakes again to "I Got You Babe" and the same DJ banter on the radio. Phil experiences the previous day's events repeating exactly and believes he is experiencing deja vu. He again unsuccessfully attempts to leave the town and retires to bed. When he awakes, it is again February 2. Phil gradually realizes that he is trapped in a time loop that no one else is aware of. He confides his situation to Rita, who directs him to a neurologist who in turn directs him to a psychologist; neither can explain his experiences. Phil gets drunk with locals Gus and Ralph and then leads police on a high-speed car chase before being arrested and imprisoned. The following morning, Phil awakens in the Cherry Tree Inn. Realizing that there are no consequences for his actions, he begins spending loops indulging in binge eating, one-night stands, robbery, and other dangerous activities, using his increasing knowledge of the day's events and the town residents to manipulate circumstances to his advantage. Phil eventually focuses on seducing Rita, using the loops to learn more about her so that he can try to sleep with her. Regardless of his actions, Rita rebuffs his advances, particularly when Phil tells her he loves her; Rita asserts that he does not even know her. Phil gradually becomes depressed and desperate for a way to escape the loop. He commits suicide in a variety of ways, even kidnapping Punxsutawney Phil and driving them both off a cliff. Each time he awakens on February2 to "I Got You Babe". He eventually tries to explain his situation to Rita again, using his detailed knowledge of the day to accurately predict events. Convinced, Rita spends the rest of that day's loop with Phil; she encourages him to think of the loops as a blessing instead of a curse. Lying on the bed together at night, Phil realizes that his feelings for Rita have become sincere. He wakes alone on February2. Phil decides to use his knowledge of the loops to change himself and others: he saves people from deadly accidents and misfortunes, and learns to play the piano, sculpt ice, and speak French. Regardless of his actions, he is unable to save a homeless old man from death. During one loop, Phil reports on the Groundhog Day festivities with such eloquence that other reporters defer to his speech, amazing Rita. Phil continues his day helping the people of Punxsutawney. That night, Rita witnesses Phil's expert piano- playing skills as the adoring townsfolk regale her with stories of his good deeds. Impressed with Phil's apparent overnight transformation, Rita successfully bids for him at a charity bachelor auction. Phil carves an ice sculpture in Rita's visage and tells her that no matter what happens, even if he is doomed to continue waking alone each morning forever, he wants her to know that he is finally happy because he loves her. They retire to Phil's room. Phil wakes the next morning to "I Got You Babe", but finds Rita is still in bed with him and the radio banter has changed; it is now February3. Phil tells Rita that he wants to live in Punxsutawney with her. 

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Babe, an orphaned piglet, is chosen for a "guess the weight" contest at a county fair. The winning farmer, Arthur Hoggett, brings him home and allows him to stay with a Border Collie named Fly, her mate Rex and their puppies, in the barn. A duck named Ferdinand, who crows as roosters are said to every morning to wake people so he will be considered useful and be spared from being eaten, persuades Babe to help him destroy the alarm clock that threatens his mission. Despite succeeding in this, they wake Duchess, the Hoggetts' cat, and in the confusion accidentally destroy the living room. At the barn meeting, Rex sternly instructs Babe to stay away from Ferdinand (now a fugitive) and the house. Sometime later, when Fly's puppies are put up for sale, Babe asks if he can call her "Mum". Christmas brings a visit from the Hoggetts' relatives. Babe is almost chosen for Christmas dinner, but a duck is picked instead after Hoggett remarks to his wife Esme that Babe may bring a prize for ham at the next county fair. On Christmas Day, Babe justifies his existence by alerting Hoggett to sheep rustlers stealing sheep from one of the fields. The next day, Hoggett sees Babe sort the hens, separating the brown from the white ones. Impressed, he takes him to the fields and allows him to try to herd the sheep. Encouraged by an elder ewe named Maa, the sheep cooperate, but Rex sees Babe's actions as an insult to sheepdogs and confronts Fly in a vicious fight for encouraging Babe. He injures her leg and accidentally bites Hoggett's hand when Hoggett tries to intervene. Rex is then chained to the dog house, muzzled and sedated, leaving the sheep herding job to Babe. One morning, Babe is awakened by the sheep's cries and finds three dogs attacking them. Although he manages to scare them off, Maa is mortally injured and dies as a result. Hoggett arrives and, thinking that Babe killed her, prepares to shoot him. Fly is so anxious to find out whether he is guilty or innocent that, instead of barking orders at the sheep, she talks to them to find out what happened. Learning the truth, Fly barks to distract Hoggett; delayed until Esme mentions that the police say feral dogs have been killing sheep on neighboring farms and asks Hoggett why he has taken his shotgun out, he then unloads it. When Esme leaves on a trip, Hoggett signs Babe up for a local sheepherding competition. As it is raining the night before, Hoggett lets him and Fly into the house. However, Duchess scratches him when he tries to speak to her, so Hoggett immediately confines her outside. When she is let back in later, she gets revenge on Babe by revealing that humans eat pigs. Horrified, he runs out to the barn and learns from Fly that this is true. The next morning, Fly discovers that Babe has run away. She and Rex alert Hoggett and they all search for him. Rex finds him in a cemetery and Hoggett brings him home. However, he is still demoralized and refuses to eat. Hoggett gives him a drink from a baby bottle, sings to him "If I Had Words" and dances a jig for him. This restores Babe's faith in Hoggett's affection and he begins eating again. At the competition, Babe meets the sheep that he will be herding, but they ignore his attempts to speak to them. As Hoggett is criticized by the bemused judges and ridiculed by the public for using a pig instead of a dog, Rex runs back to the farm to ask the sheep what to do. They give him a secret password, first extracting a promise that he will treat them better from now on. He returns in time to convey the password to Babe, and the sheep now follow his instructions flawlessly. Amid the crowd's acclamation, he is unanimously given a perfect score. While he sits down next to the farmer, Hoggett praises him with the standard command to sheep dogs that their job is done, "That'll do, Pig. That'll do." 

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On his deathbed, Mr. Dashwood tells his son from his first marriage, John, to take care of his second wife and three daughters, Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret, since under English law they will inherit nothing. John promises to do so. John's stingy, greedy and snobbish wife Fanny convinces him to give his half sisters nothing financially; John and Fanny immediately install themselves in the large house, forcing the Dashwood ladies to look for a new home. Fanny invites her brother Edward Ferrars to stay with them. Elinor and Edward soon form a close friendship. Fanny tells Mrs. Dashwood that Edward would be disinherited if he married someone of no importance or with no money. Sir John Middleton, Mrs. Dashwood's cousin, offers her a small cottage house on his estate, Barton Park in Devonshire. She and her daughters move in and are frequent guests at Barton Park. The Dashwoods meet the older Colonel Brandon, who falls in love with Marianne at first sight. However, Marianne considers him incapable of feeling love or inspiring it in another. One afternoon, Marianne takes a walk with Margaret and slips and falls in the rain. She is carried home by the dashing John Willoughby, with whom Marianne falls in love. They spend a great deal of time together, but on the morning she expects him to propose marriage to her, he instead leaves hurriedly for London. Sir John's mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings, invites her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, to visit. They bring with them Lucy Steele. Lucy confides in Elinor that she and Edward have been engaged secretly for five years. The friendship between Edward and Elinor has become mutual love, but they cannot marry because Edward has been secretly engaged to Lucy, and will not break his promise to her. Elinor sacrifices her own happiness to preserve Edward’s integrity Mrs. Jennings takes Lucy, Elinor, and Marianne to London where they meet Willoughby at a ball. He greets Marianne uncomfortably and barely acknowledges their acquaintance, and they soon learn he is engaged to the extremely wealthy Miss Grey. Marianne becomes inconsolable. Colonel Brandon later explains to Elinor that Willoughby seduced and abandoned his ward Beth, the illegitimate daughter of Brandon’s former love, Eliza. When Willoughby's aunt and benefactress Lady Allen learned of his behavior, she disinherited him, so he chose to marry for money. The honest Brandon tells Elinor that Willoughby, though he had been a libertine with Beth, did love Marianne but had no other way of avoiding financial ruin than to marry Miss Grey. Lucy Steele is invited to stay with John and Fanny Dashwood. Lucy, believing she has a friend in Fanny, confides her clandestine engagement to Edward and is thrown out of the house. Edward's mother demands that he break off the engagement. When he refuses, she arranges to have his fortune transferred to his younger brother, Robert. On hearing this, Colonel Brandon offers Edward the parish on his estate, feeling sympathy for the unfortunate but honorable Edward. On their way home to Devonshire, Elinor and Marianne stop for the night at the country estate of the Palmers, who live near Willoughby's estate. Marianne becomes gravely ill after walking in torrential rain. Colonel Brandon finds her and brings her home. The Palmers leave, for fear their newborn child will catch the disease. Elinor stays at Marianne’s side until she recovers, and the sisters return home. Colonel Brandon and Marianne begin spending time together as Marianne has a new appreciation for him. She admits to Elinor that even if Willoughby had chosen her, she is no longer convinced that love would have been enough to make him happy. The Dashwoods soon learn that Miss Steele has become Mrs. Ferrars and assume she married Edward. Later Edward visits their house and tells them that Miss Steele married his brother Robert. Hearing this, Elinor finally breaks down, unable to repress her feelings any longer. Edward tells Elinor, “My heart is, and always will be, yours,” and they marry. Soon afterward, Marianne marries Colonel Brandon, finally returning his love. Willoughby watches their wedding from a distance with a look of regret on his face and rides away. 

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In 1987, Jerry Lundegaard, the sales manager at an Oldsmobile dealership in Minneapolis, is desperate for money. After floating a GMAC loan worth $320,000, which he collateralized with nonexistent vehicles, he is unable to pay it back. On the advice of a dealership mechanic (and paroled ex-convict), Shep Proudfoot, Jerry travels to Fargo, North Dakota, and hires two small-time criminals, Carl Showalter and Gaear Grimsrud, to kidnap his wife, Jean, and extort a ransom from Wade Gustafson, her wealthy father, who owns the dealership. Jerry will give them a new car and half of the $80,000 ransom. Jerry pitches Wade a lucrative real estate deal and, believing Wade has agreed to front him $750,000, tries to call off the kidnapping, unsuccessfully. But Wade intends to make the deal himself, leaving Jerry with a paltry finder's fee. Carl and Gaear kidnap Jean and transport her to their remote cabin on Moose Lake. En route, a state trooper stops them near Brainerd for driving without temporary tags. When the trooper rejects Carl's clumsy bribe and hears Jean whimpering in the back, Gaear kills him, then chases down two witnesses and shoots them dead as well. The following morning, pregnant Brainerd police chief Marge Gunderson discovers that the dead trooper was ticketing a car with dealer plates and that, later, two men driving a dealership vehicle checked into the nearby Blue Ox Motel with two call girls and placed a call to Proudfoot. After questioning the prostitutes, Marge drives to Wade's dealership, where Proudfoot feigns ignorance and Jerry insists that no cars are missing. While in Minneapolis, Marge reconnects with Mike Yanagita, an old classmate, who awkwardly tries to romance Marge before breaking down, saying that his wife has died. Marge learns the following morning that Yanagita was lying due to his mental instability. Jerry tells Wade that the kidnappers have demanded $1 million and will deal only through him. Meanwhile, Carl, in light of the complication of the three murders, demands that Jerry hand over the "entire" $80,000. GMAC is also pressuring Jerry to either repay the loan or prove the existence of the nonexistent vehicles. While Carl is having sex with another call girl in a motel room, Proudfoot enters and attacks him in a rage for bringing him under suspicion. Carl orders Jerry to deliver the ransom immediately, but Wade insists on making the money drop himself. At the drop location in a Minneapolis parking garage, Wade says he will not hand over the money without seeing Jean. Enraged, Carl pulls out a gun and shoots Wade. Wade fires back, severely wounding Carl in the jaw; Carl shoots Wade to death. After fleeing the scene, Carl is astounded to discover that the briefcase contains $1 million. He removes $80,000 to split with Gaear, then buries the rest alongside the highway. At the cabin, Gaear has killed Jean just to quiet her; Carl says that they must split up and leave immediately. They get into a heated argument over who will keep the car. After Carl shouts insults at Gaear and moves to take the car, using his injury as justification, Gaear kills Carl with an ax. Reflecting on Yanagita's convincing lies, Marge returns to Gustafson's dealership. Jerry suspiciously insists no cars are missing and hurriedly exits saying he will check the inventory. As Marge waits in his office she sees Jerry driving away instead. The next morning, Marge drives to Moose Lake on a tip from a local bartender who had reported a "funny-looking guy" bragging about killing someone. Outside a cabin, she finds the car; nearby, Gaear is feeding Carl's dismembered body into a wood chipper. Gaear attempts to flee on foot, only for Marge to shoot him in the leg and arrest him. Soon, North Dakota police arrest Jerry at a Bismarck motel. Marge's husband Norm, whose mallard painting has been selected for a three-cent postage stamp, complains that his friend's painting will be on the first-class stamp. Marge reassures Norm that many people use three-cent stamps whenever the price of postage increases and they need to make up the difference; they happily anticipate the birth of their child in two months. 

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Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) is a glossy 35-year-old sports agent working for Sports Management International (SMI). After experiencing a life-altering epiphany about his role as a sports agent, he writes a mission statement about perceived dishonesty in the sports management business and his desire to work with fewer clients to produce a better personal relationship with them. In turn, SMI management decides to send Bob Sugar (Jay Mohr), Jerry's protégé, to fire him. Consequently, Jerry and Sugar each call all of Jerry's clients to try and convince them not to hire the services of the other. Jerry speaks to Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.), one of his clients who is disgruntled with his contract. He needs a $10 million contract for his family to live on. Jerry informs him if he gets injured for the season, he will get no money from the Cardinals. Rod tests Jerry's resolve through a very long telephone conversation, while Sugar is able to persuade the rest of Jerry's clients to stick with SMI instead. Leaving the office, Jerry announces that he will start his own agency and asks if anyone is willing to join him, to which only 26-year-old single mother Dorothy Boyd (Renée Zellweger) agrees. Meanwhile, Frank "Cush" Cushman (Jerry O'Connell), a superstar quarterback prospect who expects to be the number one pick in the NFL Draft, initially also stays with Jerry after he makes a visit to the Cushman home. However, Sugar is able to persuade Cushman and his father to sign with SMI over Jerry the night before the draft. Cushman's father implies they decided to sign with Sugar over Jerry due to Tidwell's race, stating they signed while Jerry was "in the lobby with the black fella". After an argument, Jerry breaks up with his disgruntled fiancée Avery (Kelly Preston). He then turns to Dorothy, becoming closer to her young son, Ray (Jonathan Lipnicki), and eventually starts a relationship with her. Dorothy contemplates moving to San Diego as she has a secure job offer there; however, she and Jerry agree to get married. Jerry concentrates all his efforts on Rod, now his only client, who turns out to be very difficult to satisfy ("Show me the money"). Over the next several months, the two direct harsh criticism towards each other with Rod claiming that Jerry is not trying hard enough to get him a contract while Jerry claims that Rod is not proving himself worthy of the money for which he asks; one point of contention is that Rod is not very likable and comes across as aloof to the fans. Rod takes Jerry's advice to prove he is worthy of his contract. Rod is playing well and his team is winning. Meanwhile, Jerry's marriage with Dorothy gradually deteriorates and they eventually separate. During a Monday Night Football game between the Cardinals and the Dallas Cowboys, Rod plays well but appears to receive a serious injury when catching a winning touchdown, securing a spot for the Cardinals in the playoffs. He recovers, however, and dances for the wildly cheering crowd. Afterwards, Jerry and Rod embrace in front of other athletes and sports agents and show how their relationship has progressed from a strictly business one to a close personal one, which was one of the points Jerry made in his mission statement. He then flies back home to meet Dorothy, telling her that he loves her and wants her in his life, which she accepts, uttering "You had me at hello." Rod later appears on Roy Firestone's sports show. Unbeknownst to him, Jerry has secured him an $11.2 million contract with the Cardinals allowing him to finish his pro football career in Arizona. The visibly emotional Rod proceeds to thank everyone and extends warm gratitude to Jerry. Jerry speaks with several other pro athletes, some of whom have read his earlier mission statement and respect his work with Rod. The movie ends with Ray throwing a baseball up in the air, surprising Jerry, who then discusses Ray's possible future career in the sports industry with Dorothy. 

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A young man (Geoffrey Rush) wanders through a heavy rainstorm, finding his way into a nearby restaurant. The restaurant's employees try to determine if he needs help. Despite his manic mode of speech being difficult to understand, a waitress, Sylvia, learns that his name is David Helfgott and that he is staying at a local hotel. Sylvia returns him to the hotel, and despite his attempts to engage her with his musical knowledge and ownership of various musical scores, she leaves. As a child, David is growing up in suburban Adelaide, South Australia and competing in a local music competition. Helfgott has been taught to play by his father, Peter (Armin Mueller-Stahl), who is obsessed with winning and has no tolerance for failure or disobedience. David is noticed by Mr. Rosen, a local pianist who, after an initial conflict with Peter, takes over David's musical instruction. As a teenager, David wins the state musical championship and is invited to study in United States. Although plans are made to raise money to send David off for America and that his family is initially supportive, Peter forbids David to leave, thinking his absence would destroy the family. To make matters worse, Peter begins physically and mentally abusing David which causes strain to the rest of the family. Crushed, David continues to study and befriends local novelist and co- founder of the Communist Party of Australia, Katharine Susannah Prichard (Googie Withers). David's talent grows until he is offered a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London. This time, David is able to break away from his father with the encouragement of Katharine. However, his father issues an ultimatum, effectively banishing David: "If you leave you will no longer be my son." In London, David studies under Dr. Cecil Parkes (John Gielgud) and enters a Concerto competition, choosing to play Sergei Rachmaninoff's enormously demanding 3rd Concerto, a piece he had attempted to learn as a young child to make his father proud. As David practices, his behavior becomes increasingly unhinged. David wins the competition, but collapses and suffers a mental breakdown. Admitted to a psychiatric hospital, David receives electric shock therapy to treat his condition. David recovers to the point where he is able to return to Australia but his attempts to reconcile with his father are rebuffed due to the latter's mindset that David abandoned his family. This causes David to relapse and he is forced to be readmitted to a mental institution. Years later, a volunteer at the institution recognizes David and knows of his musical talent. The woman takes him home but discovers that he is difficult to control, unintentionally destructive, and needs more care than she can offer. As time passes, David has difficulty adjusting to life in broader society again, and often leaves the hotel to stimulate his interests. The next day, David returns to the restaurant where the patrons are astounded by his ability to play the piano. One of the owners befriends David and looks after him. In return, David plays at the restaurant. Through the owner, David is introduced to an employee named Gillian (Lynn Redgrave). David and Gillian soon fall in love and marry. With Gillian's help and support, David is able to come to terms with his father's death and to stage a well-received comeback concert, presaging his return to professional music. 

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Melvin Udall is a misanthropic best-selling romance novelist in New York City, whose obsessive–compulsive disorder has him avoiding stepping on sidewalk cracks while walking through the city, and eating breakfast at the same table in the same restaurant every day. He takes an interest in his waitress, Carol Connelly, the only server at the restaurant who can tolerate his uncouth behavior. One day, Simon Bishop, a gay artist who is Melvin's apartment neighbor, is assaulted and nearly killed during a robbery. Melvin is intimidated by Simon's agent, Frank Sachs, into caring for Simon's dog, Verdell, while Simon is hospitalized. Although he initially does not enjoy caring for the dog, Melvin becomes emotionally attached to it. He simultaneously receives more attention from Carol. When Simon is released from the hospital, Melvin is unable to cope emotionally with returning the dog. Melvin's life is further altered when Carol decides to work closer to her home in Brooklyn so she can care for her acutely asthmatic son Spencer. Unable to adjust to a different waitress, Melvin arranges through his publisher (whose husband is a doctor) to pay for her son's considerable medical expenses as long as Carol agrees to return to work. She is overwhelmed but skeptical of his generosity. Meanwhile, Simon's assault and rehabilitation, coupled with Verdell's preference for Melvin, causes Simon to lose his creative muse and fall into a depression. With no medical insurance, he is approaching bankruptcy due to his medical bills. Frank persuades him to go to Baltimore to ask his estranged parents for money. Because Frank is too busy to take injured Simon to Baltimore himself, Melvin reluctantly agrees to do so; Frank lends Melvin the use of his Saab 900 convertible for the trip. Melvin invites Carol to accompany them on the trip to lessen the awkwardness. She reluctantly accepts the invitation, and relationships among the three develop. Once in Baltimore, Carol persuades Melvin to take her out to have dinner. Melvin's comments during the dinner greatly flatter—and subsequently upset—Carol, and she abruptly leaves. Upon seeing Carol, who is frustrated, Simon begins to sketch her, semi-nude, in his hotel room, which rekindles his creativity, and he once more feels a desire to paint. He briefly reconnects with his parents, but is able to tell them that he will be fine. After returning to New York, Carol tells Melvin that she does not want him in her life anymore. She later regrets her statement and calls to apologize. The relationship between Melvin and Carol remains complicated, until Simon (whom Melvin has allowed to move in with him, as he had to sell his apartment) persuades Melvin to declare his love for her. Melvin goes to see Carol, who is hesitant, but agrees to try and establish a relationship with him. The film ends with Melvin and Carol walking together. As he opens the door at an early morning pastry shop for Carol, he realizes that he has stepped on a crack in the pavement, but does not seem to mind. 

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The once-successful steel mills of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, have shut down and most of the staff have been laid off. Former steelworkers Gary "Gaz" Schofield and Dave Horsefall have resorted to stealing scrap metal from the abandoned mills to sell. They take Gaz’s son Nathan with them to help their thieving efforts. They are surprised by a security guard who locks them inside the steel mill. Gaz is facing trouble from his ex-wife Mandy and her boyfriend Barry over child support payments that he has been unable to pay since losing his job. Nathan lives with Mandy and Barry but Gaz has joint custody of him with Mandy. Nathan wishes he and his father Gaz could do more "normal stuff" in their time together. Mandy seeks a court ruling giving her sole custody of Nathan, whom Gaz loves dearly. Gaz is desperate for money and for Nathan’s love. One day, Gaz spots a crowd of women lined up outside a local club to see a Chippendales' striptease act. He gets the idea to form his own striptease group using local men in hopes of making enough money to pay off his child support obligations. The first to join the group is Lomper, a security guard at the steel mill where Dave and Gaz once worked, whom they interrupt while he is attempting suicide. Next, they recruit Gerald Cooper, their former foreman, who is hiding from his wife the fact that he is unemployed. Gaz and Dave see Gerald and his wife, Linda, at a dance class, and recruit him to teach them some actual dance moves. The four men hold an open audition to recruiting more members and settle on Horse, an older man who is nevertheless a good dancer, and Guy, who can't dance but proves to be well-endowed. The six men begin to practise their act. Gaz then learns that he has to pay £100 in order to secure the club for the night. He cannot afford this, but Nathan gets the money out of his savings. When they are greeted by two local women while they put up posters for the show, Gaz boasts that they are better than the real Chippendales because they go "the full monty". Dave drops out due to body image problems and gets a job as a security guard at Asda. The others hold a public rehearsal at the mill in front of some female relatives of Horse, but are caught mid-show by a passing policeman, and Gaz, Gerald and Horse are arrested for indecent exposure. This costs Gaz the right to see Nathan. Lomper and Guy manage to escape to Lomper's house, where they look lovingly at each other, starting a relationship. Gerald is thrown out by Linda after bailiffs arrive at their house and seize their belongings to pay Gerald's debts, resulting in him having to stay with Gaz. Later Gaz goes to Asda and asks Dave if he could borrow a jacket for Lomper's mother's funeral. Dave agrees and also decides to quit his job and they go to the funeral together. Soon, the group find the act and their arrest has made them famous. They agree to forgo the plan, until Gaz learns that the show is sold out. He convinces the others to do it for one night only. Gerald is unsure as he has now got the job that Gaz and Dave earlier tried to sabotage his interview for, but agrees to do it just once. Initially Dave still refuses, but regains his confidence after encouragement from his wife, Jean, and joins the rest of the group minutes before they go on stage. Nathan also arrives with Dave, having secretly come along, and tells Gaz that Mandy is there but she would not let Barry go with her. Gaz refuses to do the act because there are men in the audience (including the police officers who watched the footage of the security camera's recording of them earlier), when the posters were supposed to say it was for women only. The other five are starting the act when Nathan orders his father to go out on stage. Gaz, proud of his son, joins the others and performs in front of the audience and Mandy, who seems to see him in a new light. The film finishes with the group performing on stage in front of a packed house, stripping to Tom Jones' version of "You Can Leave Your Hat On" (their hats being the final item removed) with astounding success. 

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Twenty-year-old Will Hunting (Matt Damon) of South Boston is a self-taught genius, though he works as a janitor at MIT and spends his free time drinking with his friends Chuckie, Billy, and Morgan. When Professor Gerald Lambeau posts a difficult mathematics problem on a blackboard as a challenge for his graduate students, Will solves the problem anonymously, stunning both the students and Lambeau. As a challenge to the unknown genius, Lambeau posts an even more difficult problem. Will flees when Lambeau catches him writing the solution on the blackboard late at night. At a bar, Will meets Skylar (Minnie Driver), a British woman about to graduate from Harvard College, who plans on attending medical school at Stanford. The next day, Will and his friends fight a gang who used to bully Will as a child. Will is arrested after he attacks a responding police officer. Lambeau sits in on his court appearance and watches Will defend himself. He arranges for him to avoid jail time if he agrees to study mathematics under Lambeau's supervision and participate in therapy sessions. Will tentatively agrees, but treats his therapists with mockery. In desperation, Lambeau calls on Dr. Sean Maguire, his college roommate, who now teaches psychology at Bunker Hill Community College. Unlike other therapists, Sean actually challenges Will's defense mechanisms, and after the first session where Sean threatens Will after he insults his deceased wife and a few unproductive sessions, Will begins to open up. Will is particularly struck by Sean's story of how he met his wife by giving up his ticket to the historic game six of the 1975 World Series, after falling in love at first sight. Sean does not regret his decision, even though his wife died of cancer. This encourages Will to build a relationship with Skylar, though he lies to her about his past and is reluctant to introduce her to his friends or show her his rundown neighborhood. Will also challenges Sean to take an objective look at his own life, since Sean cannot move on from his wife's death. Lambeau sets up a number of job interviews for Will, but Will scorns them by sending Chuckie as his "chief negotiator", and by turning down a position at the NSA with a scathing critique of the agency's moral position. Skylar asks Will to move to California with her, but he refuses and tells her he is an orphan, and that his foster father physically abused him. Will breaks up with Skylar and later storms out on Lambeau, dismissing the mathematical research he has been doing. Sean points out that Will is so adept at anticipating future failure in his interpersonal relationships that he deliberately sabotages them in order to avoid emotional pain. Chuckie likewise challenges Will over his resistance to taking any of the positions he interviews for, telling Will he owes it to his friends to make the most of opportunities they will never have, even if it means leaving one day without looking back. He then tells Will that the best part of his day is a brief moment when he waits on his doorstep thinking Will has moved on to something greater. Will walks in on a heated argument between Sean and Lambeau over his potential. Sean and Will share and find out that they were both victims of child abuse. Sean helps Will to see that he is a victim of his own inner demons and to accept that it is not his fault, causing him to break down in tears. Will accepts one of the job offers arranged by Lambeau. Having helped Will overcome his problems, Sean reconciles with Lambeau and decides to take a sabbatical. Will's friends present him with a rebuilt Chevrolet Nova for his 21st birthday. Later, Chuckie goes to Will's house to pick him up, only to find that he is not there, much to his happiness. Will sends Sean a letter telling him to tell Lambeau that he had to go "see about a girl", revealing he passed on the job offer and instead is heading to California to reunite with Skylar. 

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In early 1950s Los Angeles, LAPD Sergeant Edmund "Ed" Exley is determined to live up to the reputation of his father, famed detective Preston Exley, who was killed by an unknown assailant whom Exley nicknamed "Rollo Tomasi". Already isolated from other officers by his intelligence and career ambitions, he volunteers to testify against them in the "Bloody Christmas" case in exchange for promotion to Detective Lieutenant, despite the advice of precinct captain Dudley Smith. Plainclothes Officer Wendell "Bud" White, whom Exley considers a "mindless thug", is obsessed with viciously reprimanding woman-beaters. White hates Exley due to his partner, Dick Stensland, being fired thanks to Exley's testimony. With crime boss Mickey Cohen imprisoned for tax evasion while his underlings are being mysteriously killed, Cpt. Smith recruits White to torture out-of-town criminals trying to gain a foothold in Los Angeles. White also encounters Lynn Bracken, a hooker resembling Veronica Lake, and former cop Leland "Buzz" Meeks. Both work for Pierce Patchett, whose Fleur-de-Lis service runs prostitutes altered by plastic surgery to resemble film stars. Sergeant Jack Vincennes is a narcotics detective who moonlights as a technical advisor on Badge of Honor, a TV police drama series. Sid Hudgens, publisher of the Hush- Hush tabloid magazine, pays him for tips on celebrity arrests. Exley soon investigates a robbery and multiple homicide at the Nite Owl coffee shop. Stensland was one of the victims. Exley and Vincennes arrest three African- American felons for the crime; they later escape from police custody and are killed by Exley in a shootout. Exley is decorated for bravery. Although the Nite Owl case appears solved, Exley and White individually investigate further, discovering evidence of corruption all around them. White begins a relationship with Lynn, and recognizes Nite Owl victim Susan Lefferts as one of Patchett's escorts. Lefferts' mother tells White that Stensland was Susan's "boyfriend"; White searches the crawl space under her house and finds Meeks' corpse. He then interrogates Johnny Stompanato, Mickey Cohen's ex-bodyguard, who says Meeks was trying to sell a large stash of heroin he had stolen. Earlier, Vincennes helped Hudgens to set up actor Matt Reynolds in a homosexual tryst with District Attorney Ellis Loew. After Reynolds is murdered, a guilt-ridden Vincennes joins Exley's investigation to find the killer. Vincennes later confronts Smith with evidence that Meeks and Stensland worked together under Smith's command a decade earlier, and dropped an investigation on Patchett, who had Hudgens photographing businessmen with hookers in a blackmail scam. Smith suddenly shoots Vincennes, who dies after murmuring "Rollo Tomasi", a name which Exley told him in confidence. The next day, Exley's suspicions are aroused when Smith asks him who "Rollo Tomasi" is. During an interrogation of Hudgens, Smith arranges for White to see photos of Lynn having sex with Exley, which sends White leaving in a rage to find him. At the police station, White and Exley fight, but stop when both realize that Smith is corrupt. They deduce that Stensland killed Meeks over the stolen heroin, and that the Nite Owl killings were to allow Smith to kill Stensland. The three African-Americans were framed by evidence planted by Smith's men. Finally cooperating, Exley has White beat up Loew, who reveals that Smith and Patchett (aided by Hudgens' blackmail photos) have been taking over Mickey Cohen's criminal empire, and that the killings were because of Smith tying up loose ends. They later find Patchett and Hudgens murdered. Smith lures Exley and White into an ambush. After the pair kills Smith's hitmen in a gunfight, White and Smith wound each other. Exley holds Smith at gunpoint, but as Smith tries to surrender to arriving police, Exley shoots him dead. At the police station, Exley explains what he, Vincennes and White learned about Smith's corruption. The LAPD thus decides to protect their image by saying Smith died a hero in the shootout, whilst awarding Exley a second medal for bravery. Upon leaving City Hall, Exley shakes hands with a recuperating White and watches as he and Lynn drive off to her home in Arizona. 

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In 1558, Catholic Queen Mary dies from a cancerous tumour in her uterus. Mary's Protestant half- sister, Elizabeth, under house arrest for conspiracy charges, is freed and crowned the Queen of England. As briefed by her adviser William Cecil, Elizabeth inherits a distressed England besieged by debts, crumbling infrastructure, hostile neighbors and treasonous nobles within her administration, chief among them the Duke of Norfolk. Cecil advises Elizabeth to marry, produce an heir, and secure her rule. Unimpressed with her suitors, Elizabeth delays her decision and continues her secret affair with Lord Robert Dudley. Cecil appoints Francis Walsingham, a Protestant exile returned from France, to act as Elizabeth's bodyguard and adviser. Mary of Guise lands an additional 4,000 French troops in neighboring Scotland. Unfamiliar with military strategy and browbeaten by Norfolk at the war council, Elizabeth orders a military response, which proves disastrous when the professional French soldiers defeat the younger, ill-trained English forces. Walsingham tells Elizabeth that Catholic lords and priests intentionally deprived Elizabeth's army of proper soldiers and used their defeat to argue for Elizabeth's removal. Realizing the depth of the conspiracy against her and her dwindling options, Elizabeth accepts Mary of Guise's conditions to consider marrying her nephew Henry of France. To stabilize her rule and heal England's religious divisions, Elizabeth proposes the Act of Uniformity, which unites English Christians under the Church of England and severs their connection to the Vatican. In response to the Act's passage, the Vatican sends a priest to England to aid Norfolk and his cohorts in their growing plot to overthrow Elizabeth. Unaware of the plot, Elizabeth meets Henry of France but ignores his advances in favor of Lord Robert. William Cecil confronts Elizabeth over her indecisiveness about marrying and reveals Lord Robert is married to another woman. Elizabeth rejects Henry's marriage proposal when she discovers he is a cross-dresser and confronts Lord Robert about his secrets, fracturing their idyllic affair and banishing him from her private residence. Elizabeth survives an assassination attempt, whose evidence implicates Mary of Guise. Elizabeth sends Walsingham to secretly meet with Mary in Scotland, under the guise of once again planning to marry Henry. Instead, Walsingham assassinates Guise, inciting French enmity against Elizabeth. When William Cecil orders her to solidify relations with the Spanish, Elizabeth dismisses him from her service, choosing instead to follow her own counsel. Walsingham warns of another plot to kill Elizabeth spearheaded by the priest from Rome carrying letters of conspiracy. Under Elizabeth's orders, Walsingham apprehends the priest, who divulges the names of the conspirators and a Vatican agreement to elevate Norfolk to the English crown if he weds Mary, Queen of Scots. Walsingham arrests Norfolk and executes him and every conspirator except Lord Robert. Elizabeth grants Lord Robert his life as a reminder to herself how close she came to danger. Drawing inspiration from the divine, Elizabeth cuts her hair and models her appearance after the Virgin Mary. Proclaiming herself married to England, she ascends the throne as "the Virgin Queen." 

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In 1939, in the Kingdom of Italy, Guido Orefice is a young Jewish man who arrives to work in the city (Arezzo, in Tuscany) where his uncle Eliseo runs a restaurant. Guido is comical and sharp and falls in love with a Gentile girl named Dora. Later, he sees her again in the city where she is a teacher and set to be engaged to a rich, but arrogant, man, a local government official with whom Guido has regular run-ins. Guido sets up many "coincidental" incidents to show his interest in Dora. Finally, Dora sees Guido's affection and promise, and gives in, against her better judgment. He steals the lady from her engagement party, on a horse, humiliating her fiancé and mother. They are later married and have a son, Giosuè, and run a bookstore. When World War II breaks out, Guido, his uncle Eliseo, and Giosuè are seized on Giosuè's birthday. They and many other Jews are forced onto a train and taken to a concentration camp. After confronting a guard about her husband and son, and being told there is no mistake, Dora volunteers to get on the train in order to be close to her family. However, as men and women are separated in the camp, Dora and Guido never see each other during the internment. Guido pulls off various stunts, such as using the camp's loudspeaker to send messages—symbolic or literal—to Dora to assure her that he and their son are safe. Eliseo is murdered in a gas chamber shortly after their arrival. Giosuè narrowly avoids being gassed himself as he hates to take baths and showers, and did not follow the other children when they had been ordered to enter the gas chambers and were told they were showers. In the camp, Guido hides their true situation from his son. Guido explains to Giosuè that the camp is a complicated game in which he must perform the tasks Guido gives him. Each of the tasks will earn them points and whoever gets to one thousand points first will win a tank. He tells him that if he cries, complains that he wants his mother, or says that he is hungry, he will lose points, while quiet boys who hide from the camp guards earn extra points. Giosuè is at times reluctant to go along with the game, but Guido convinces him each time to continue. At one point Guido takes advantage of the appearance of visiting German officers and their families to show Giosuè that other children are hiding as part of the game, and he also takes advantage of a German nanny thinking Giosuè is one of her charges in order to feed him as Guido serves the German officers. Guido and Giosuè are almost found out to be prisoners by another server until Guido is found teaching all of the German children how to say "Thank you" in Italian. Guido maintains this story right until the end when, in the chaos of shutting down the camp as the Allied forces approach, he tells his son to stay in a box until everybody has left, this being the final task in the competition before the promised tank is his. Guido goes to find Dora, but he is caught by a German soldier. An officer makes the decision to murder Guido, who is led off by the soldier. While he is walking to his death, Guido passes by Giosuè one last time and winks, still in character and playing the game. Guido is then shot and left for dead in an alleyway. The next morning, Giosuè emerges from the sweat-box, just as a US Army unit led by a Sherman tank arrives and the camp is liberated. Giosuè is overjoyed about winning the game (unaware that his father is dead), thinking that he won the tank, and an American soldier allows Giosuè to ride on the tank. While traveling to safety, Giosuè soon spots Dora in the procession leaving the camp and reunites with his mother. While the young Giosuè excitedly tells his mother about how he had won a tank, just as his father had promised, the adult Giosuè, in an overheard monologue, reminisces on the sacrifices his father made for him and his story. 

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Guadalcanal cemetery, 1945 United States Army Private Witt goes AWOL from his unit and lives among the carefree Melanesian natives in the South Pacific. He is found and imprisoned on a troop carrier by First Sergeant Welsh of his company. The men of C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division have been brought to Guadalcanal as reinforcements in the campaign to secure Henderson Field, seize the island from the Japanese, and block off their route to Australia. As they wait in a Navy transport, they contemplate their lives and the invasion. Battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Tall talks with Brigadier General Quintard about the invasion and its importance. C Company lands on Guadalcanal unopposed and marches to the interior of the island, encountering natives and evidence of the Japanese presence. They arrive near Hill 210, a key Japanese position. The Japanese have placed bunkers at the top of the hill and anyone attempting the climb will be cut down. A brief shelling of the hill begins the next day at dawn. C Company attempts to capture the hill but is repelled by gunfire. Among the first killed is one of the platoon leaders, Second Lieutenant Whyte. Later in the battle, having advanced further up the hill, a squad led by Sergeant Keck hides behind a knoll safe from enemy fire to wait for reinforcements. Keck reaches for a grenade on his belt and accidentally pulls the pin, then throws himself back so that he will be the only one to die. Lieutenant Colonel Tall orders the company commander, Captain James Staros, to take the bunker by frontal assault, at whatever cost. Staros refuses and Tall decides to join Staros on the front line to see the situation. The Japanese resistance seems to have lessened, and Tall's opinion of Staros seems to have been sealed. Private Witt, having been assigned punitively as a stretcher bearer, asks to rejoin the company, and is allowed to do so. A small detachment of men performs a reconnaissance mission on Tall's orders to determine the strength of the Japanese bunker. Private Bell reports there are five machine guns in the bunker. He joins another small team of men (including Witt), led by Captain John Gaff, on a flanking mission to take the bunker. The operation is a success and C Company overruns one of the last Japanese strongholds on the island. The Japanese they find are largely malnourished and dying, and put up little resistance. For their efforts, the men are given a week's leave, though they find little joy in the respite in the fighting: the airfield where they are based comes under enemy artillery bombardment; Captain Staros is relieved of his command by Lieutenant Colonel Tall, who deems him too soft for the pressures of combat and suggests that he apply for reassignment and become a lawyer in the JAG in Washington. He offers to arrange a Silver Star for Staros, to avoid the unit's name being stained by having an officer removed from command. Bell receives a letter from his wife informing him that she has fallen in love with someone else and wishes to divorce. Witt comes across the locals and notices that they have grown distant and distrustful of him and quarrel regularly with one another. The company is sent on patrol up a river but with the inexperienced 1st Lieutenant George Band at its head. As Japanese artillery fire falls close to their positions, Band orders some men to scout upriver, with Witt volunteering to go along. They encounter an advancing Japanese column and are attacked. To buy time for Corporal Fife to go back and inform the rest of the unit, Witt draws away the Japanese but is then encircled by one of their squads, who demand that he surrender. He raises his rifle and is gunned down. The company is able to retreat safely, and Witt is later buried by his squadmates. C Company receives a new commander, Captain Bosche and boards a waiting LCT, departing from the island. 

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A prologue establishes the journalistic bona fides of 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman (Pacino) and host Mike Wallace (Plummer) as they prepare to interview Sheikh Fadlallah for 60 Minutes. Later, Bergman approaches Jeffrey Wigand (Crowe)—a former executive at the Brown & Williamson tobacco company—for help translating technical documents. Wigand agrees, but intrigues Bergman when he refuses to discuss anything else, citing a confidentiality agreement. B&W; later coerce Wigand into a more restrictive agreement, leading Wigand to accuse Bergman of betraying him. Bergman subsequently visits Wigand to defend himself and investigate the potential story. Wigand, though apparently possessing very damaging information, is hesitant to jeopardize his severance package with B&W; by revealing anything. Wigand's family move into a more modest house, and Wigand begins working as a teacher. One night Wigand finds evidence of trespass, and receives a sinister phone call. Meanwhile, Bergman contacts Richard Scruggs, an attorney representing Mississippi in a lawsuit against the tobacco industry, suggesting that if they deposed Wigand, it could negate his confidentiality agreement and give CBS cover to broadcast the information; Scruggs expresses interest. Some time later, Wigand receives an emailed death threat and finds a bullet in his mailbox. He contacts the FBI, but the agents who visit him are hostile and confiscate his computer. A furious Wigand demands that Bergman arrange an interview, in which Wigand states that he was fired after he objected to B&W; intentionally making their cigarettes more addictive. Bergman later arranges a security detail for Wigand's home, and the Wigands suffer marital stress. Wigand testifies in Mississippi, over the objections of B&W; attorneys, despite having been served with a gag order. On returning home, he discovers that his wife Liane (Diane Venora) has left him and taken their daughters. Eric Kluster, the president of CBS News, decides not to broadcast Wigand's interview, after CBS legal counsel Helen Caperelli warns that the network is at risk of legal action from B&W.; Bergman confronts Kluster, believing that he is protecting the impending sale of CBS to Westinghouse, which would enrich both Kluster and Caperelli. Wallace, and their executive producer Don Hewitt, both side with Kluster. Wigand is appalled, and terminates contact with Bergman. Investigators probe Wigand's personal history and publish their findings in a 500-page dossier. Bergman learns that The Wall Street Journal intends to use it in a piece questioning Wigand's credibility. He convinces the editor of the Journal to delay while Jack Palladino, an attorney and investigator, evaluates it. After infighting at CBS over the Wigand segment, Bergman is ordered to take a "vacation", as the abridged 60 Minutes segment airs. Bergman contacts Wigand, who is both dejected and furious, accusing Bergman of manipulating him. Bergman defends himself and praises Wigand and his testimony. Scruggs urges Bergman to air the full segment to draw public support for their lawsuit, itself under threat by a lawsuit from Mississippi's governor. Bergman is unable to assist, and privately questions his own motives in pursuing the story. Bergman contacts an editor at The New York Times, disclosing the full story and events at CBS. The Times prints the story on the front page, and condemns CBS in a scathing editorial. The Journal dismisses the dossier as character assassination and prints Wigand's deposition. Hewitt accuses Bergman of betraying CBS, but finds that Wallace now agrees that bowing to corporate pressure was a mistake. 60 Minutes finally airs the original segment, including the full interview with Wigand. Bergman tells Wallace that he has resigned, believing 60 Minutes's credibility and integrity is now permanently tarnished. 

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Vianne Rocher, with her daughter Anouk, come to the small French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes. They are brought by "the wind" during the last days of Carnival to open a chocolaterie, La Céleste Praline. The village priest, Francis Reynaud, is initially mystified by their arrival because Lent has just begun, but his confusion turns rapidly to anger when he understands that Vianne holds dangerous beliefs, does not obey the church and "flouts" the unspoken rules that he feels should govern his "flock". Vianne, we learn from her personal thoughts, is a witch, though she does not use the word. Her mother and she were wanderers, going from one city to another. Her mother strove to inspire the same need for freedom in her daughter, who is more social and passive. They were born with gifts, and used a kind of "domestic magic" to earn their living. Throughout her life, Vianne has been running from the "Black Man", a recurring motif in her mother's folklore. When her mother dies of terminal cancer, Vianne continues on her own, trying to evade the Black Man and the mysterious force of the wind and settle down to a normal life. The chocolaterie is an old dream of hers. She has an innate talent for cooking and a charming personality. She tries to fit in and help her customers. She starts to build a group of regular customers, and, to Reynaud's dismay, she doesn't go out of business. Reynaud attempts to have Vianne run out of town, and he talks about her every Sunday at church. Some people initially stay away, but not for long. His conflict with her becomes his personal crusade. Vianne, however, announces a "Grand Festival of Chocolate", to be held on Easter Sunday. 

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In November 1932, wealthy English industrialist Sir William McCordle, his wife Lady Sylvia, and their daughter Isobel host a weekend shooting party at their country estate, Gosford Park. The guests arrive: Sylvia's sisters Louisa and Lavinia, and their husbands Lord Raymond Stockbridge and Commander Anthony Meredith; her aunt Constance, Countess of Trentham; the Hon. Freddie and Mabel Nesbitt; actor Ivor Novello and American film producer Morris Weissman; and latecomers Lord Rupert Standish and Jeremy Blond. Mrs Wilson, the housekeeper, assigns the visiting servants to their rooms and takes notice of Robert Parks, Lord Stockbridge's valet, who mentions being raised in an orphanage. Head housemaid Elsie guides the inexperienced Mary MacEachran, maid to Lady Trentham, through the gathering. Following dinner, a silver carving knife is missing. Henry Denton, Weissman’s valet, raises the staff’s suspicions with intrusive questions, and has a late-night sexual encounter with Lady Sylvia. Isobel asks Elsie to speak to Sir William about hiring Freddie, who is blackmailing Isobel over their affair and her aborted pregnancy. Freddie mistreats Mabel, whom he married for her money when he overestimated her wealth, while Rupert courts Isobel. Lady Trentham confides to Mary that Sylvia and Louisa cut cards to decide which of them would marry Sir William. When the men go pheasant shooting the next morning, a stray shot grazes Sir William's ear. The ladies join them for lunch, and Sir William withdraws from Anthony’s business scheme, leaving the commander financially ruined. Lady Sylvia informs her aunt that Sir William may halt Constance's allowance. During dinner, Lady Sylvia berates Sir William and Elsie comes to his defence, inadvertently exposing their affair; Elsie leaves the room disgraced while Sir William abruptly exits to the library. Mrs Wilson brings him coffee which he knocks away, demanding whisky. The guests gather in the drawing room as Novello plays the piano, with the servants listening outside; Freddie, Anthony, Robert, and footman George each slip away. One of the men, seen only by his trousers, retrieves the missing knife and enters the library, where Sir William is slumped in his chair, and stabs him. The body is soon discovered, and the bumbling Inspector Thompson and competent Constable Dexter arrive to investigate. Henry visits Lady Sylvia for another tryst, and is revealed to be an American actor posing as Weissman's Scottish valet as research for an upcoming role. It is discovered that Sir William was poisoned before being stabbed, and Mrs Croft, the head cook, tells her staff about Sir William's history of raping his female factory workers; those who became pregnant were forced to give their babies up for adoption, or else lose their jobs. Isobel gives Freddie a cheque, which he angrily tears up when confronted by Mabel. Inspector Thompson releases the guests without interviewing most of the staff. Mary confronts Robert, deducing that he became Lord Stockbridge's valet to gain proximity to Sir William and murder him. Robert reveals that he is the illegitimate son of Sir William, who gave him to an orphange when his mother died shortly after his birth. He admits that he stabbed Sir William but did not poison him, and he and Mary share a kiss. As the guests and their servants depart, Freddie pursues a partnership with Anthony, and Isobel rejects Rupert after overhearing him discuss her inheritance. Elsie accepts a ride to London with Weissman, Novello, and Henry. Lady Trentham and Lady Sylvia discuss Mrs Croft and Mrs Wilson's long-standing feud, leading Mary to realize Mrs Wilson is Robert’s mother. She confronts Mrs Wilson, who reveals that she and Mrs Croft are sisters. They both had children fathered by Sir William while working at his factory; Mrs Croft kept her baby and lost her job, though the child died in infancy, while Mrs Wilson gave Robert up. Realizing he was her son and that he intended to kill his father, Mrs Wilson poisoned Sir William to ensure Robert’s only crime would be stabbing a dead body. Mrs Croft comforts Mrs Wilson as Mary says goodbye to Robert, saying nothing about his mother or the murder, and the last guests go their separate ways. 

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In 1900 Paris, a man named Christian, who is suffering from depression, begins writing ("Nature Boy"). One year earlier, he moves to the Montmartre district to join the Bohemian movement. Meeting a troupe of performers led by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Christian helps them finish their show, Spectacular Spectacular, to sell to Harold Zidler, owner of the Moulin Rouge. They arrive at the Moulin Rouge as Zidler and his "Diamond Dog Dancers" perform ("Zidler's Rap Medley/Can Can Dance"). Toulouse arranges for Christian to present the work to Satine, the star courtesan, unaware that Zidler has promised Satine to the Duke of Monroth, his potential investor ("Sparkling Diamonds"). Satine mistakes Christian for the Duke, and they dance before retiring to her chamber ("Rhythm of the Night", "Meet Me in the Red Room"), but she learns he is merely a writer ("Your Song"). The Duke interrupts, and Christian and Satine claim they were rehearsing Spectacular Spectacular. With the help of Zidler, Toulouse, and the troupe, they pitch the show to the Duke, improvising a plot about an evil maharajah attempting to woo an Indian courtesan who loves a poor sitar player ("The Pitch (Spectacular Spectacular)"). The Duke backs the show, on the condition that only he may court Satine. Satine contemplates Christian and her longing to become "a real actress" ("One Day I'll Fly Away"). Christian returns, and he and Satine fall for each other ("Elephant Love Medley"). As the cabaret is converted to a theater, Christian and Satine meet under the pretense of rehearsing. When the suspicious Duke threatens to stop financing the show, Zidler arranges for Satine to dine with the Duke, but she falls ill from tuberculosis ("If I should die (Górecki)"). Zidler tells the Duke that Satine has gone to confession ("Like a Virgin"). Zidler learns from the doctor treating Satine that she does not have long to live, but keeps this from Christian. Satine tells Christian their relationship endangers the show, but he writes a song to affirm their love ("Come What May"). Nini, a jealous performer, reveals to the Duke that the play is a metaphor for Christian, Satine, and the Duke. The Duke demands the ending be changed to the courtesan choosing the maharajah; Satine offers to spend the night with him to keep the original ending. At the Duke's quarters, Satine sees Christian on the streets below, and realizes she cannot sleep with the Duke ("El Tango de Roxanne (Roxanne)"). The Duke attempts to rape her, but she is saved by the dancer Le Chocolat. Christian urges Satine to run away with him. The Duke tells Zidler he will have Christian killed if Satine is not his. Zidler warns Satine, but when she refuses, he informs her that she is dying ("A Fool to Believe"). Zidler explains that to save Christian's life, Satine must reject him ("The Show Must Go On"). Barred from the Moulin Rouge, Christian is heartbroken, though Toulouse insists Satine does love him. The night of the show, Christian sneaks into the Moulin Rouge, intending to pay Satine her fee as a courtesan ("Hindi Sad Diamonds"). He confronts her backstage, but they find themselves in the spotlight; Zidler convinces the audience that Christian is the sitar player in disguise. Christian denounces Satine and walks off the stage. From the rafters, Toulouse declares, "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return", spurring Satine to sing the song Christian wrote to express their love. Christian returns to the stage, joining her in the song. The Duke orders his bodyguard to kill Christian, but is thwarted, while Zidler stops the Duke's own attempt. The Duke storms out as Christian and Satine complete their song ("Come What May (Reprise)", "Coup d'État (Finale)"). After the curtain closes, Satine succumbs to tuberculosis. Before she dies, Christian and Satine affirm their love and she tells him to write their story. A year later, the Moulin Rouge has closed down and was left in disrepair, and Christian finishes writing the tale of his love for Satine, a "love that will live forever" ("Nature Boy (Reprise)"). 

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In a large 19th-century mansion with red walls and carpets, Agnes is dying of uterine cancer. Her sisters, Maria and Karin, arrive at their childhood home and take turns with the maid, Anna, watching over Agnes. Anna, more religious than the sisters, prays after she lost her young daughter. When Agnes' doctor David visits, he sees his former lover Maria. Maria remembers their affair and her failed marriage with her husband Joakim, who stabbed himself non-fatally in response to the adultery. David tells her that she has become more indifferent. Agnes remembers their mother, who neglected and teased her and favoured Maria, with greater understanding and recalls sharing a moment of sorrow with her. While Agnes' sisters remain emotionally distant, Anna comforts the suffering Agnes by baring her breasts and holding her at night. Agnes dies after a long period of suffering, and at her wake the priest says that her faith was stronger than his own. Maria tells Karin that it is unusual for them to avoid touching each other or having a deep conversation. She tries to touch Karin, who recoils at the gesture. Karin recalls an earlier occasion at the mansion, where, struggling with self-harm, she mutilated her genitals with a piece of broken glass to repel her husband Fredrik. Karin later dines with Maria, saying that Anna was devoted to Agnes and probably deserves a memento. She also reveals her resentment of Anna's familiarity with her and Maria, her suicidal tendencies, and her hatred of Maria's flirtatiousness and shallow smiles. The sisters reconcile after the argument, touching each other. In a dream sequence, Agnes briefly returns to life and asks Karin and then Maria to approach her. Karin, repelled by the invitation, says that she still has life and does not love Agnes enough to join her. Maria approaches the undead Agnes but flees in terror when she grabs her, saying that she cannot leave her husband and children. Anna re-enters the room and takes Agnes back to bed, where she cradles the dead Agnes in her arms. The family decides to send Anna away at the end of the month, with Fredrik refusing to award her with any additional severance pay, and the maid rejects her promised memento. Maria returns to Joakim, and Karin cannot believe Maria's claim that she does not remember their touch. Anna finds Agnes' diary with an account of a visit with Maria, Karin and Anna, with a shared, nostalgic moment on a swing. Agnes wrote that “come what may, this is happiness.” 

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In 1957, explorer Stewart McAlden and his team smuggle a captured Sumatran rat-monkey, a hybrid creature that resulted from the rape of tree monkeys by plague-carrying rats, out of Skull Island. During the team's escape from the island's warrior natives, who demand the return of the creature, Stewart is bitten by the rat-monkey, resulting in his dismemberment and killing by his crew, who fear the effects of the bite. The captured rat- monkey is then shipped to Wellington Zoo in New Zealand. In Wellington, Lionel Cosgrove lives in a Victorian mansion with his domineering mother Vera. When he was a child, Lionel's father drowned trying to save him at the beach, and the incident has haunted him into adulthood. To Vera's dismay, Lionel falls in love with a Spanish Romani shopkeeper's daughter, Paquita María Sánchez, who is convinced the two are destined to be together. When the two visit the Wellington zoo together on a date, Vera follows them and is bitten by the rat- monkey which attacked one of the monkeys, and though she appears fine initially, the following day she grows more and more decrepit, culminating in her eating her own ear after it falls off in a custard during a lunch with colleagues, and later eating Paquita's dog. She appears to die before reanimating as a ravenous zombie and killing the attending nurse Mrs. McTavish, who also returns as a zombie, before Lionel locks them both in the basement and keeps them sedated with animal tranquilizers. While visiting Paquita, Lionel is given a pendant for luck by her grandmother. Vera is able to break out of the basement and is apparently killed when struck by a tram. At her funeral, Lionel tranquilizes Vera to keep her from attacking the mourners. Later, while returning to the graveyard to administer more of it, he is intercepted and beaten by a group of hoodlums who assume him to be a necrophiliac. Heavily drunk Void urinates on Vera's gravestone. Vera bursts from her grave and attacks the hoodlums. In the ensuing commotion, Void and the local priest are killed and turned into zombies, forcing Lionel to hide them in the basement, too. After the nurse and priest copulate and produce a zombie baby, Lionel breaks up with Paquita to keep her safe. Shortly afterward, Lionel's uncle Les arrives to wrangle with Lionel over Vera's estate. Discovering the zombies, which he believes to be "stiffs", in the basement, Les blackmails his nephew into giving up the house and his inheritance and invites his friends over for a housewarming party despite Lionel's objections. During the party, Paquita arrives to try to make amends with Lionel. She discovers the zombies in the basement, and Lionel explains to her all that has occurred. She is able to convince Lionel to administer poison to the zombies to finally kill them, but after injecting the zombies with it, he discovers the poison is animal stimulants, which revives them. They narrowly escape the now-enhanced zombies, who burst into the house upstairs and horribly and painfully slaughter the party guests. The guests subsequently reanimate and begin to attack the survivors, including Paquita and Lionel, who are separated in the ensuing mayhem, havoc and chaos. Lionel enters the house with a lawnmower and proceeds to purée the zombie horde within, while Paquita starts puréeing all body parts of any zombies she can lay her hand upon. Paquita then obliterates the head of zombified Les, who has been killed by a now-monstrous Vera. Vera erupts from the basement and pursues them both to the rooftop as the house catches fire from a burst gas pipe. As Vera corners them on the roof, Lionel confronts his mother and reveals that he witnessed Vera drowning his father and his lover in the bathtub as a child, and accuses her of lying to him all his life. Vera becomes enraged and swallows Lionel with an opening in her stomach before trying to kill Paquita. Lionel cuts his way out of his mother's body with the pendant given to him earlier, causing Vera to fall back into the burning house. Lionel and Paquita escape the burning rooftop as the fire brigade arrives. They kiss and then walk away arm-in-arm. 

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On his birthday, middle-aged Henry Perkins is going home to Fulham on the underground, looking forward to his birthday dinner, for which he and his wife Jean have invited their old friends, Vic and Betty Johnson. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened so far, but on the tube train he by mistake picks up a wrong briefcase without noticing it. He gets off at Fulham Broadway, wants to get out his gloves and scarf and realises that he is actually carrying someone else's briefcase. In it, he finds £735,000 in used £50 notes. He goes to a pub and counts the money several times in one of the booths of the gents. "Bent copper" Davenport—in plain clothes—watches the excited man and believes he has come to the pub to solicit men. When Henry Perkins reaches his home, Vic and Betty are just arriving. He is planning to just grab a few things and hurry off to Barcelona with his wife and the money, leaving his old life behind. As it is Friday night, and he knows that it will take whoever has his own briefcase only till Monday morning to phone his office and get his address—and he wants to be long gone by then. He knows very well that all the money in the briefcase must be part of some criminal transaction, so from a moral point of view he has no bad conscience whatsoever. Foreseeably, unforeseeable events intervene. While he is still explaining to his reluctant wife that they have to leave in a hurry, Davenport—whom Henry does not recognise from the pub—arrives and wants to have a talk with him. Of course Henry thinks this is about the money, and a whole series of (deliberately) mistaken identities ensues, which also includes Vic and Betty, who are introduced to Davenport as relatives of the Perkinses on their way home to Australia. Bill, the taxi driver Henry has called to drive his wife and himself to Heathrow, adds to the confusion. At the same time, "Mr Nasty"—the man whose briefcase Henry accidentally took on the underground—is killed by "Mr Big"—the man he had criminal dealings with—and thrown into the Thames near Putney Bridge—which is quite close to Fulham --, together with Henry's briefcase (which contains, among other things, a cheese and chutney sandwich). "Mr Big", a Dutchman who does not speak English, keeps phoning the Perkinses but remains monosyllabic throughout his calls ("Brerfcurse"). When Bill answers the phone, he gives the caller the exact address—not knowing what a big mistake he is making. Immediately after the call, "Mr Big" starts walking towards the Perkinses' Fulham house. In the meantime, another policeman arrives at the Perkinses': It is Slater (who does not know Davenport, neither personally nor by name), who has come to inform Jean Perkins that her husband's body has been fished out of the river (really Mr. Nasty, who happened to have Henry's briefcase with him when Mr. Big shot him). He wants to take her with him to the mortuary to identify her husband. This leads to yet another series of mistaken identities on top of the first one, with Henry Perkins—who is supposed to be dead, waiting to be identified—posing as his brother Freddy, also from Australia. Slater is kept waiting endlessly—both outside and inside the house. Jean, who used to be a teetotaller, is completely drunk by now since she has been hitting the brandy. In the course of events, Davenport turns out to be a bent copper who demands ten percent of the money for keeping his mouth shut. He is introduced to Slater as yet another brother of "Percy's" called Archie. There is continuous coming and going and also one or two mix-ups as far as the briefcases are concerned. As Jean still does not want to go to "Barlecona", Betty offers herself as Henry's travelling companion (and more). It looks like wife- swapping to all of them, with Vic staying behind with Jean and her cat. Eventually, however, they all decide to go to Barcelona, with Davenport joining the two couples as their bodyguard and Bill joining them as their gardener. When they finally want to get away, "Mr Brerfcurse" arrives with a gun. He has been slightly injured in a car accident caused by Bill in his taxi and Slater in his police car, both waiting round the corner. Some shooting goes on in the house, but eventually the Dutchman can be overwhelmed. An ambulance is called. Henry Perkins confesses everything, including all the assumed identities, to Slater. After Slater has arrested the Dutchman and led him away, Henry willy-nilly readjusts to the old status quo and wants to have his birthday dinner after all. This is when Bill, the taxi driver, informs the two couples that he has secretly put the money into one of the suitcases. The chicken is burned, but in the end they do have the money. 

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Bernard Lawrence is an American journalist stationed in Paris. A playboy, he has devised an ingenious system for juggling three girlfriends: he dates stewardesses who are assigned to international routes on non-intersecting flight schedules so that only one is in the country at any given time. He has their routes detailed with such precision that he can drop off his British United Airways girlfriend for her outgoing flight and pick up his inbound Lufthansa girlfriend on the same trip to the airport, while his Air France girlfriend is in a holding pattern elsewhere. With help from his long-suffering housekeeper Bertha, who swaps the appropriate photos and food in and out of the apartment to match the incoming girlfriend, Lawrence keeps the women are unaware of each others' presence in the apartment. They regard Lawrence's flat as their "home" during their Paris layovers. Bernard is so happy with his life in Paris that he intends to turn down an imminent promotion that would require him to move to New York City. But his life is turned upside down when his girlfriends' airlines begin putting new, state-of-the-art aircraft into service. These faster airplanes change all of the existing route schedules and allow the stewardesses to spend more time in Paris. Most alarming for Bernard, his three girlfriends will now all be in Paris at the same time. Robert Reed, a fellow journalist and an old acquaintance, complicates Bernard's life even further when he arrives in town and is unable to find a hotel room. He insists on staying in Bernard's apartment for a few days. When he sees Bernard's living situation, he schemes to take over Bernard's apartment, girls, housekeeper and job while manipulating Bernard into taking the new job in New York. 

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Prior, despite his new-found peace of mind and engagement to munitions worker Sarah, has been affected by the war and therefore does not have a lot of concern for his safety. Prior has been cured of shell-shock and is preparing to return to France. Prior experiences numerous and risky sexual encounters; his only rule is that he never pays for sex – a rule he eventually breaks. Rivers, concerned for Prior's safety, finally recognises that his relationship with Prior, and his other patients for that matter, is deeply paternal. In contrast with upper-class officers like Sassoon, with whom Rivers has been able to form warm friendships, he has always found Prior to be a thorn in his side. As Prior returns to the front, Rivers continues to take care of his patients and his invalid sister, amid this he reminisces uncomfortably about his childhood and memories of his experience ten years earlier on an anthropological expedition to Simbo (then called Eddystone Island) in the Solomon Islands in Melanesia. There, he befriended Njiru, the local priest-healer who took Rivers on his rounds to see sick villagers and also to the island's sacred Place of the Skulls. With him on the expedition was Arthur Maurice Hocart. This episode is a symbolic capitulation to the inevitability of Prior's death at the Western Front, a fate he shares with the poet Wilfred Owen. In a futile battle that takes place a few days before the Armistice, Billy and his friend Owen are killed. 

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In 1284, while the town of Hamelin was suffering from a rat infestation, a piper dressed in multicolored ("pied") clothing appeared, claiming to be a rat-catcher. He promised the mayor a solution to their problem with the rats. The mayor, in turn, promised to pay him for the removal of the rats (according to some versions of the story, the promised sum was 1,000 guilders). The piper accepted and played his pipe to lure the rats into the Weser River, where they all drowned. Despite the piper's success, the mayor reneged on his promise and refused to pay him the full sum (reputedly reduced to a sum of 50 guilders) even going so far as to blame the piper for bringing the rats himself in an extortion attempt. Enraged, the piper stormed out of the town, vowing to return later to take revenge. On Saint John and Paul's day, while the adults were in church, the piper returned dressed in green like a hunter and playing his pipe. In so doing, he attracted the town's children. One hundred and thirty children followed him out of town and into a cave and were never seen again. Depending on the version, at most three children remained behind: one was lame and could not follow quickly enough, the second was deaf and therefore could not hear the music, and the last was blind and therefore unable to see where he was going. These three informed the villagers of what had happened when they came out from church. Other versions relate that the Pied Piper led the children to the top of Koppelberg Hill, where he took them to a beautiful land, or a place called Koppenberg Mountain, or Transylvania, or that he made them walk into the Weser as he did with the rats, and they all drowned. Some versions state that the Piper returned the children after payment, or that he returned the children after the villagers paid several times the original amount of gold. The Hamelin street named Bungelosenstrasse ("street without drums") is believed to be the last place that the children were seen. Ever since, music or dancing is not allowed on this street. 

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At a circus midway, the penniless and hungry Tramp (Chaplin) is mistaken for a condemnable pickpocket and chased by both the police and the real crook (the latter having stashed a stolen wallet and watch in the Tramp's pocket to avoid detection). Running away, the Tramp stumbles into the middle of a performance and unknowingly becomes the hit of the show. The ringmaster/proprietor of the struggling circus gives him a tryout the next day, but the Tramp fails miserably. However, when the property men quit because they have not been paid, he gets hired on the spot to take their place. Once again, he inadvertently creates comic mayhem during a show. The ringmaster craftily hires him as a poorly paid property man. The Tramp befriends Merna (Kennedy), a horse rider who is treated badly by her ringmaster stepfather. She later informs the Tramp that he is the star of the show, forcing the ringmaster to pay him accordingly. With the circus thriving because of him, the Tramp also is able to secure better treatment for Merna. After overhearing a fortune teller inform Merna that she sees "love and marriage with a dark, handsome man who is near you now", the overjoyed Tramp buys a ring from another clown. Alas for him, she meets Rex (Crocker), the newly hired tightrope walker. The Tramp eavesdrops as she rushes to tell the fortune teller that she has fallen in love with the new man. With his heart broken, the Tramp is unable to entertain the crowds. After several poor performances, the ringmaster warns him he has only one more chance. When Rex cannot be found for a performance, the ringmaster (knowing that the Tramp has been practicing the tightrope act in hopes of supplanting his rival) sends the Tramp out in his place. Despite a few mishaps, including several mischievous escaped monkeys, he manages to survive the experience and receives much applause from the audience. However, when he sees the ringmaster slapping Merna around afterward, he beats the man and is fired. Merna runs away to join him. The Tramp finds and brings Rex back with him to marry Merna. The trio go back to the circus. The ringmaster starts berating his stepdaughter, but stops when Rex informs him that she is his wife. When the traveling circus leaves, the Tramp remains behind: he prefers to fade to allow them to be happy. Melancholic, he picks himself up and starts walking jauntily away. 

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Thunderbolt Jim Lang (George Bancroft), wanted on robbery and murder charges, ventures out with his girl, "Ritzy" (Fay Wray), to a Harlem nightclub, where she informs him that she is going straight. During a raid on the club, Thunderbolt escapes. His gang shadows Ritzy and reports that she is living with Mrs. Moran (Eugenie Besserer), whose son, Bob (Richard Arlen), a bank clerk, is in love with Ritzy. Fearing for Bob's safety, Ritzy engineers a police trap for Thunderbolt; he escapes but is later captured, tried, and sentenced to be executed at Sing Sing. From the death house, he successfully plots to frame Bob in a bank robbery and killing. Bob is placed in the facing cell, and guards frustrate Thunderbolt's attempts to get to his rival. When Ritzy marries Bob in the death house, Thunderbolt confesses his part in Bob's conviction. He plots to kill the boy on the night of his execution, but instead at the last minute his hand falls on Bob's shoulder in a gesture of friendship. 

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A small plane carrying three British citizens — Major Crespin (H.B. Warner), his estranged wife Lucilla (Alice Joyce), and pilot Dr. Traherne (Ralph Forbes) — becomes lost and is forced to crash land in the tiny realm of Rukh, somewhere near the Himalaya Mountains. The Raja (George Arliss) who rules the land welcomes them. As it happens, the Raja's three brothers are soon to be executed for murder by the British. When the three plane-crash survivors appear, the Raja's subjects become convinced that their Green Goddess has delivered three victims into their hands for revenge. The three are to be killed once the Raja's three brothers are dead. The Raja professes no great love for his brothers, as they had posed a danger to the succession of his own children, but he sees no reason to anger his people by protecting his British guests. When he becomes attracted to Lucilla, however, he offers to spare her life if she will become his wife. She refuses. The prisoners become aware that the Raja has a telegraph, operated by the Raja's renegade British exile and chief assistant, Watkins (Ivan F. Simpson). Hoping to send for help, they try to bribe Watkins, but when they realize he is only leading them on, they throw him off the balcony to his death. Major Crespin manages to send a message before the Raja's men break into the room. The Raja personally shoots Crespin in the back, killing him in mid-transmission. The next day, Traherne and Lucilla are taken to the temple of the Green Goddess. Once more, the Raja renews his offer to Lucilla, but is again turned down. Given a moment alone, Traherne and Lucilla confess their love for each other. Then, in the nick of time, six British biplanes appear in the skies over Rukh. Lt. Cardew (Reginald Sheffield) lands and demands the release of the couple. The Raja gives in. 

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During a vacation in Venice, Barbara Billings (Claudette Colbert), daughter of a prominent American chewing gum magnate, falls in love with Pierre Mirande (Maurice Chevalier), a French tour guide from a noble family that lost its fortune during World War I. Pierre loves Barbara in return and sings to her that "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me". Although Barbara's mother (Marion Ballou) likes Pierre, her father (George Barbier) and her fiancé Ronnie (Frank Lyon) see him as a fortune- hunting foreigner. In order to get rid of him, Barbara's father decides to give him a job doing the hardest work at his factory across the "big pond" in New York City. Despite doing tough work, Pierre genuinely enjoys his job, impressing his coworker (Nat Pendleton). He also captivates his landlady (Andrée Corday) and her young helper (Elaine Koch) with his Parisian charm and humor. Unfortunately, Pierre becomes exhausted from his work and falls asleep on the night that he is to attend Barbara's party. He is then fired when he is wrongly accused of spilling illicit rum on chewing gum samples. However, the incident inspires him to devise a new product for the company – rum-flavored chewing gum. The product is a success. He wins back his job and finds favor with Barbara's father, who promotes him. Although Pierre hopes to use his new position to marry Barbara, he neglects his relationship with her in the process. While he plans to open a new branch of the company in Cleveland and to adopt "You Brought a New Kind of Love" as a new sales jingle, a frustrated Barbara declares that she will marry Ronnie instead. However, Pierre whisks her away in a speedboat and the two reconcile and embrace.TCM Full synopsis 

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In the 5th century AD, a Christian mob threatens the home of a magician in Hellenistic Egypt. He tells his daughter Promethea to flee into the desert, hoping the gods of the ancient world will preserve her. The story shifts to New York City in the late 20th century. Sophie Bangs is hoping to interview a woman named Barbara Shelley for a college paper on "Promethea", a character who seems to recur in literature and pop culture through the centuries. Shelley is hostile to her and warns, "You don't wanna go looking for folklore. And you especially don't want folklore to come looking for you." After departing, Sophie is tracked and attacked by a creature known as a Smee. Just as things look bleakest for Sophie, she is rescued by Barbara, who has mystical powers and is now dressed as Promethea. She informs Sophie that the only reason she would be attacked is if someone suspects she will become the next vessel for Promethea (Barbara is the current). It turns out that Promethea is called to the world when someone uses their imagination to make her real. As they hide from the pursuing Smee, the weakened and fatally injured Barbara instructs Sophie to write a poem about Promethea hoping Sophie is indeed the successor and the creative expression is a way to get Sophie in the correct state of mind to allow herself to become Promethea. Barbara's idea works and from that night Sophie, having defeated the Smee, becomes the next Promethea. The story continues with Sophie/Promethea learning about Promethea and the previous individuals who have in the past been the vessels for Promethea. In the days that follow, the hospital where Barbara lies is attacked by demons, an act that leads to Barbara's death. This motivates Sophie to learn more about magic, mysticism and the Tree of Life and its spheres in order to find Barbara and help her seek Steve Shelly, Barbara's dead husband. Throughout their climb up the spheres of Tree of Life Sophie/Promethea and Barbara encounter difficulties such as imprisonment by the demon Asmodeus, as well as meeting figures such as Sophie's father Juan (who died when she was little), Barbara's guardian angel Boo Boo and Promethea's father, who she has not seen since his murder in 411 A.D. Eventually Barbara and Steve find each other and are re-incarnated as twins (who Sophie ends up looking after at the end of the book). Having been gone a whole summer, Sophie is unaware the FBI has been tracking Promethea, and want to take her into custody for the events Promethea has caused throughout the years. Moments before the FBI arrives, Sophie's mother instructs her to run away (just as Promethea's father had centuries earlier). Three years pass and Sophie, having abandoned her duties as Promethea, hides in Millennium City under the alias Joey Estrada with new boyfriend Carl. However, after being found by the FBI and Tom Strong, Sophie reluctantly becomes Promethea and in turn carries out one final task; bringing about the end of the world. 

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Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond, a demobilised British captain bored with civilian life, places a personal advertisement in The Times offering his services for "any excitement". One of the many replies intrigues him: Phyllis Benton claims she is in great danger. He immediately sets out for the Green Bay Inn, where she has reserved some rooms for him. Unable to persuade him to give up this mad adventure, his friend Algy Longworth follows after, dragging Drummond's valet, Danny, along. Lilyan Tashman and Ronald Colman in Bulldog Drummond Phyllis turns out to be all Drummond had hoped for: beautiful and desperately in need of help. Her wealthy uncle, John Travers, is being treated in a hospital by a Dr. Lakington for a nervous breakdown, but she is sure there is something wrong about the hospital and Dr. Lakington, and that she is being watched constantly. She runs away when she spots the outline of two eavesdropping men (Algy and Danny), much to Drummond's annoyance. She is caught and taken to Dr. Lakington's Nursing Home by Carl Peterson, Irma and the doctor. When Drummond follows, he witnesses Travers' unsuccessful attempt to escape. Drummond drives away, but returns stealthily and rescues Phyllis. Sending her off with Algy and Danny, he sneaks back once more and overhears Irma convince the others to stay and try to get Travers' signature on a document transferring securities and jewels to them. Drummond manages to save Travers. However, he makes a serious error when he takes Travers back to the inn. The villains soon arrive there. Drummond manages to disguise himself as Travers; the crooks take him back, along with Phyllis. When they realise they have the wrong man they threaten to torture Phyllis. Drummond tells them Travers is hidden at the inn (whereas he is really being driven to London). While Peterson and Irma go to check, Drummond is freed by Phyllis before Lakington can kill him. He strangles the doctor. Drummond disarms Peterson when he returns, but his gang pose as policemen and take him away. Phyllis persuades Drummond to let them go, telling him she loves him. 

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The story takes place in the Russian Empire in the year 1910. Yegor (Lawrence Tibbett), a dashing (as well as singing) bandit leader meets Princess Vera (Catherine Dale Owen) at a mountain inn. They fall in love, but the relationship is shattered when Yegor kills Vera's brother, Prince Serge, for raping his sister, Nadja, and driving her to suicide. Yegor kidnaps Vera, forcing her to live a life of lowly servitude among the bandits. Vera manages to outwit Yegor, who is captured by soldiers and flogged. Vera begs Yegor's forgiveness. Although still in love with each other, they realize they cannot be together. 

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The series depicts the social and family life of a boy in a typical American suburban middle-class family from 1968 to 1973, covering the ages of 12 through 17. The location where the Arnold family lives is never specified other than being suburb, but some episodes have license plates showing California and New York. Each year in the series takes place exactly 20 years before airing (1988 to 1993). The show's plot centers on Kevin Arnold, son of Jack and Norma Arnold. Kevin's father holds a management job at NORCOM, a defense contractor, while his mother is a housewife. Kevin also has an older brother, Wayne, and an older sister, Karen. Two of Kevin's friends and neighbors are prominently featured throughout the series: his best friend, Paul Pfeiffer, and his crush- turned-girlfriend Gwendolyn "Winnie" Cooper. Storylines are told through Kevin's reflections as an adult in his mid-30s, voiced by narrator Daniel Stern. In the pilot episode, Winnie's older brother Brian, who Kevin admires, is killed in action in Vietnam in 1968. Kevin meets Winnie in a nearby wooded area called Harpers Woods, and they share a kiss. This unsaid relationship between Winnie and Kevin remains dormant for a long while, with Winnie starting to date a popular 8th grader named Kirk McCray and Kevin briefly going steady with Becky Slater. After Kevin breaks up with Becky due to his feelings for Winnie, Becky becomes a recurring nuisance for Kevin. Winnie eventually dumps Kirk as well, and Kevin and Winnie share a second kiss at the start of the 1969 summer vacation. Around Valentine's Day 1970, Winnie temporarily dates Paul, who has broken up with his girlfriend Carla. Winnie and Kevin start dating each other soon after. Just before the summer break, Winnie and her family move to a house four miles away. Although Winnie attends a new school, Lincoln Junior High, she and Kevin decide to remain together and maintain a successful long-distance relationship. A beautiful new student named Madeline Adams joins Kevin's school and quickly catches Kevin's eye, but it is Winnie who breaks up with Kevin after meeting Roger, a jock at her new school. Neither relationship lasts long, but Winnie and Kevin don't reunite until she is injured in a car crash. After graduating from junior high, Kevin and Winnie both go to McKinley High and Paul attends a prep school. Paul would later transfer to McKinley High and join Kevin and Winnie. Earlier seasons of the show tended to focus on plots involving events within the Arnold household and Kevin's academic struggles, whereas later seasons focused much more on plots involving dating and Kevin's friends. Kevin has several brief flings during the summer of 1971 and the 1971–1972 academic year. After Kevin's grandfather gets his driver's license revoked, he sells his car to Kevin for a dollar. Paul transfers to McKinley High after his first semester at prep school when his father runs into financial troubles. Wayne decides to join the army as a result of his inability to do well in school. This gets turned around when Wayne isn't able to get his physical. Winnie and Kevin are reunited when they go on a double date to a school dance and find themselves more attracted to each other than their respective partners. In late 1972, Kevin's older brother Wayne starts working at NORCOM, and dates his co-worker Bonnie, a divorcée with a son, but the relationship does not last. Kevin's father quits NORCOM, and buys a furniture manufacturing business. 

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The Kelly gang inspects a reward notice for their capture. The police descend on Glenrowan while Father Gibney protests the burning of the hotel. Film historian Ina Bertrand suggests that the tone of The Story of the Kelly Gang is "one of sorrow, depicting Ned Kelly and his gang as the last of the bushrangers." Bertrand identifies several scenes that suggest considerable film making sophistication on the part of the Taits. One is the composition of a scene of police shooting parrots in the bush. The second is the capture of Ned, shot from the viewpoint of the police, as he advances. Retrieved 10 January 2013. A copy of the programme booklet has survived, containing a synopsis of the film, in six 'scenes'. The latter provided audiences with the sort of information later provided by intertitles, and can help historians imagine what the entire film may have been like. According to the synopsis given in the surviving programme, the film originally comprised six sequences. These provided a loose narrative based on the Kelly gang story.A copy of the programme is held by the National Film and Sound Archive.National Film and Sound ArchiveA scan of a page from the programme can be seen at the blog Classic Australian Cinema: Australian films and actors from silents to the New Wave. Accessed 13 August 2015 *Scene 1: Police discuss a warrant for Dan Kelly's arrest. Later, Kate Kelly rebuffs the attentions of a Trooper. *Scene 2: The killings of Kennedy, Scanlon and Lonigan at Stringybark Creek by the gang. *Scene 3: The hold-up at Younghusband's station and a bank hold–up. *Scene 4: Various gang members and supporters evade the police and the gang killing of Aaron Sherritt. *Scene 5: The attempt to derail a train and scenes at the Glenrowan Inn. The police surround the hotel, Dan Kelly and Steve Hart "die by each other's hands" after Joe Byrne is shot dead. *Scene 6: The closing scenes. Ned Kelly fights hard but is shot in the legs. "He begs the Troopers to spare his life, thus falls the last of the Kelly Gang…" Some confusion regarding the plot has emerged as a result of a variant poster dating from the time the film was re-released in 1910. The similar (but different) photos suggest that either the film was being added to for its re- release, or an entirely new version was made by Johnson and Gibson, as the poster proclaims. In addition, a film fragment (" the Perth fragment ") exists, showing Aaron Sherritt being shot in front of an obviously painted canvas flat. This is now thought to be from a different film altogether, perhaps a cheap imitation of The Story of the Kelly Gang made by a theatrical company, keen to cash in on the success of the original, or an earlier bushranger short. 

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"The War of the Worlds" begins with a paraphrase of the beginning of the novel, updated to contemporary times. The announcer introduces Orson Welles: > We know now that in the early years of the 20th century, this world was > being watched closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal > as his own. We know now that as human beings busied themselves about their > various concerns, they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as > narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures > that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacence, > people went to and fro over the earth about their little affairs, serene in > the assurance of their dominion over this small spinning fragment of solar > driftwood which by chance or design man has inherited out of the dark > mystery of Time and Space. Yet across an immense ethereal gulf, minds that > are to our minds as ours are to the beasts in the jungle, intellects vast, > cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes and slowly and > surely drew their plans against us. In the 39th year of the 20th century > came the great disillusionment. It was near the end of October. Business was > better. The war scare was over. More men were back at work. Sales were > picking up. On this particular evening, October 30th, the Crossley service > estimated that 32 million people were listening in on radios… The radio program begins as a simulation of a normal evening radio broadcast featuring a weather report and music by "Ramon Raquello and His Orchestra" live from a local hotel ballroom. After a few minutes, the music begins to be interrupted by several news flashes about strange gas explosions on Mars. An interview is arranged with reporter Carl Phillips and Princeton-based Professor of Astronomy Richard Pierson, who dismisses speculation about life on Mars. The musical program returns temporarily but is interrupted again by news of a strange meteorite landing in Grover's Mill, New Jersey. Phillips and Pierson are dispatched to the site, where a large crowd has gathered. Philips describes the chaotic atmosphere around the strange cylindrical object, and Pierson admits that he does not know exactly what it is, but that it seems to be made of an extraterrestrial metal. The cylinder unscrews, and Phillips describes the tentacled, horrific "monster" that emerges from inside. Police officers approach the Martian waving a flag of truce, but the invaders respond by firing a heat ray, which incinerates the delegation and ignites the nearby woods and cars as the crowd screams. Phillips's shouts about incoming flames are cut off mid-sentence, and after a moment of dead air, an announcer explains that the remote broadcast was interrupted due to "some difficulty with our field transmission." After a brief "piano interlude", regular programming breaks down as the studio struggles with casualty and fire- fighting updates. A shaken Pierson speculates about Martian technology. The New Jersey state militia declares martial law and attacks the cylinder; a captain from their field headquarters lectures about the overwhelming force of properly-equipped infantry and the helplessness of the Martians, until a tripod rises from the pit. The tripod obliterates the militia, and the studio returns, now describing the Martians as an invading army. Emergency response bulletins give way to damage and evacuation reports as thousands of refugees clog the highways. Three Martian tripods from the cylinder destroy power stations and uproot bridges and railroads, reinforced by three others from a second cylinder that landed in the Great Swamp near Morristown, as gas explosions continue. The Secretary of the Interior addresses the nation. A live connection is established to a field artillery battery in the Watchung Mountains. Its gun crew damages a machine, resulting in a release of poisonous black smoke, before fading into the sound of coughing. The lead plane of a wing of bombers from Langham Field broadcasts its approach and remains on the air as their engines are burned by the heat ray and the plane dives on the invaders in a last-ditch suicide attack. Radio operators go active and fall silent: although the bombers manage to destroy one machine, the remaining five are spreading black smoke across the Jersey Marshes into Newark. Eventually, a news reporter, broadcasting from atop the Broadcasting Building, describes the Martian invasion of New York City – "five great machines" wading the Hudson "like [men] wading through a brook", black smoke drifting over the city, people diving into the East River "like rats", others in Times Square "falling like flies". He reads a final bulletin stating that Martian cylinders have fallen all over the country, then describes the smoke approaching down the street until he suffocates and keels over, leaving only the sounds of the city under attack in the background. Finally, a despairing ham radio operator is heard calling, "2X2L calling CQ, New York. Isn't there anyone on the air? Isn't there anyone on the air? Isn't there... anyone?" After a period of silence comes the voice of announcer Dan Seymour: > You are listening to a CBS presentation of Orson Welles and the Mercury > Theatre on the Air, in an original dramatization of The War of the Worlds by > H. G. Wells. The performance will continue after a brief intermission. This > is the Columbia Broadcasting System. The last third of the program is a monologue and dialogue. Professor Pierson, having survived the attack on Grover's Mill, attempts to make contact with other humans. In Newark, he encounters an opportunistic militiaman who holds fascist ideals in regards to man's relationship with the Martians, and intends to use Martian weaponry to take control of both species. Declaring that he wants no part of "his world", Pierson leaves the stranger with his delusions. His journey takes him to the ruins of New York, where he discovers that the Martians have died – as with the novel, they fell victim to earthly pathogenic germs, to which they had no immunity. Life eventually returns to normal, and Pierson finishes writing his recollections of the invasion and its aftermath. After the conclusion of the play, Welles reassumed his role as host and told listeners that the broadcast was a Halloween concoction: the equivalent, as he put it, "of dressing up in a sheet, jumping out of a bush and saying, 'Boo!'" Popular mythology holds that the disclaimer was hastily added to the broadcast at the insistence of CBS executives, as they became aware of panic inspired by the program; in fact, at the station break, network executive Davidson Taylor had attempted to prevent Welles, who had added the speech at the last minute, from reading it on air for fear of exposing the network to legal liability, but Welles delivered it anyway. 

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The album consists of two discs, which correspond roughly to the two "books" of Wells' novel. 

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The Martians Momar ("Mom Martian") and Kimar ("King Martian") are worried that their children Girmar ("Girl Martian") and Bomar ("Boy Martian") are watching too much Earth television, most notably station KID-TV's interview with Santa Claus in his workshop at Earth's North Pole. Consulting the ancient 800-year- old Martian sage Chochem (a Yiddish/Hebrew word meaning "sage", though pronounced differently from the film's version), they are advised that the children of Mars are growing distracted due to the society's overly rigid structure. From infancy, all their education is fed into their brains through machines and they are not allowed individuality or freedom of thought. Chochem notes that he had seen this coming "for centuries", and says that the only way to help the children is to allow them their freedom and be allowed to have fun. To do this, Mars needs a Santa Claus figure, like on Earth. Leaving Chochem's cave, the Martian leaders decide to abduct Santa Claus from Earth and bring him to Mars. The Martians cannot distinguish between all the fake Santas, so they kidnap two children to find the real one. Once this is accomplished, one Martian, Voldar, who strongly disagrees with the idea, repeatedly tries to kill Santa Claus along with the two kidnapped Earth children. He believes that Santa is corrupting the children of Mars and turning them away from Mars' original glory. When they arrive on Mars, Santa and the children build a factory to make toys for the Martian children. However, Voldar and his assistants, Stobo and Shim, sabotage the factory and change its programming so that it makes the toys incorrectly. Meanwhile, Dropo, Kimar's assistant, who has taken a great liking to Santa Claus and Christmas, puts on one of Santa's spare suits and starts acting like Santa Claus. He goes to the toy factory to make toys, but Voldar mistakes him for Santa and kidnaps him. When Santa and the children come back to the factory to make more toys, they discover that someone has tampered with the machines. Voldar and Stobo come back to the factory to make a deal with Kimar, but when they see the real Santa Claus, they realize that their plan has been foiled. Dropo, held hostage in a cave, tricks his guard Shim and escapes. Kimar then arrests Voldar, Stobo, and Shim. Santa notices that Dropo acts like him, and says that Dropo would make a good Martian Santa Claus. Kimar agrees and sends Santa and the children back to Earth. 

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The film shows the story of a recently widowed Queen Victoria and her relationship with a Scottish servant, John Brown, a trusted servant of her deceased husband, and the subsequent uproar it provoked. Brown had served Victoria's Prince Consort, Prince Albert; Victoria's Household thought Brown might help the Queen who had remained in mourning since the Prince Consort's death in 1861. In 1863, hoping to subtly coax the Queen toward resuming public life after years of seclusion, Brown is summoned to court. The plan succeeds a little too well for the liking of Victoria's chief secretary Sir Henry Ponsonby and The Prince of Wales as well as other members of the Royal family; the public, press and politicians soon come to resent Brown's perceived influence over Victoria. Brown takes considerable liberties with court protocol, especially by addressing Her Majesty as "woman". He also quickly takes control over the Queen's daily activities, further aggravating the tensions between himself and the royal family and servants. The moniker "Mrs Brown", used both at the time and in the film, implied an improper, and perhaps sexual, relationship. The film does not directly address the contemporary suspicions that Victoria and Brown had had a sexual relationship and perhaps had even secretly married, though cartoons from the satirical magazine Punch are shown as being passed around in Parliament (one cartoon is revealed to the camera, showing an empty throne, with the sceptre lying unhanded across it). As a result of Victoria's seclusion, especially at Balmoral Castle in Scotland (something initially encouraged by Brown), her popularity begins failing and republican sentiment begins growing. Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli has a weakening hold over the House of Commons and a fear of rising anti-monarchical sentiment in the country. He convinces Brown to use his influence with Victoria to persuade her to return to the performance of her public duties, especially the speech from the throne at the impending opening of Parliament. Brown is reluctant to do so, rightly fearing that Victoria will take this as a personal betrayal. When Brown urges Victoria to return to London and fulfill her public duties, an argument ensues. Feeling betrayed by Brown, Victoria becomes visibly agitated. When Brown once again refers to her as "woman", she sharply rebukes him. Leaving the room, she turns to Ponsonby and Jenner requesting that they serve her needs, visibly demoting Brown's contact and influence over her. Their relationship was never to be the same again. Victoria's eventual acquiescence and her decision to return to public life leads to a revitalization of her popularity and a resurgence in public support of the monarchy. Brown continues to serve Victoria until his death in 1883. In his final years, his duties become reduced to head of security. The palace staff has become weary of Brown's dogmatic ways and they mock and rebuke his security efforts as paranoid delusions. Finally, during a public event, a gun-wielding assassin appears out of the crowd leaping toward the royal family. An ever-vigilant Brown successfully thwarts the assassination attempt. At dinner the next evening, the Prince of Wales retells the story, bragging to their dinner companions that he had been the one to warn Brown of the assassin. Seeing through her son's bragging, Victoria announces instead that a special medal for bravery, the "Devoted Service Medal," will be minted and awarded to Brown. Some years later, Brown becomes gravely ill with pneumonia after chasing through the woods late at night searching for a possible intruder. Hearing of Brown's illness, Victoria visits his room and is shaken to see her old friend so ill. She confesses that she has not been as good a friend as she might have been in recent years, and the pneumonia proves fatal for Brown. During his years of service, Brown had kept a diary and, upon his passing, Ponsonby and Jenner discuss its contents stating that it must never be seen by anyone. The film's closing crawl notes that "John Brown's diary was never found." Jenner also reveals that the Prince of Wales hurled the Queen's favourite bust of Brown over the palace wall, referencing the film's opening sequence. 

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The show follows the production of a fictional late night talk show The Larry Sanders Show. It chronicles the daily life of host Larry (Garry Shandling), producer Arthur "Artie" (Rip Torn), sidekick Hank Kingsley (Jeffrey Tambor) and their interaction with celebrity guests, the network and others. Episodes focus on the professional and personal lives of the principal characters, with most focusing on Larry. Ancillary characters are also featured, among them the writers Phil and Jerry, talent bookers Paula and Mary Lou, and the personal assistants Beverly, Darlene and Brian. Larry's wife, ex-wife and girlfriends are frequent sources of conflict, and his home is a secondary location for the show. Episodes often focus on power dynamics. Supporting characters commonly struggle for status or power, both within the structure of the show's staff as well as within the broader Hollywood community. These struggles almost always end with the character receiving their comeuppance from either Larry, Artie, or one of the episode's guest stars. A typical early episode opens to the titles with the sound of Hank's audience warm-up routine in the background. This is followed by the talk show's titles and an excerpt from Larry's monologue. Episodes vary after this, sometimes continuing with the studio recording, but often cutting to a back-stage shot or to the production offices. 

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The book centers on Rosemary Woodhouse, a young married woman who has just moved into the Bramford, a historic Gothic Revival-style New York City apartment building, with her husband, Guy, a struggling actor. Guy had so far appeared only in small roles in the stage plays Luther, Nobody Loves an Albatross, and various TV commercials. The pair is warned that the Bramford has a disturbing history involving witchcraft and murder, but they choose to overlook this. For some time Rosemary has wanted children, but Guy wants them to wait until his career is more established. Rosemary and Guy are quickly welcomed to the Bramford by neighbors Minnie and Roman Castevet, an eccentric elderly couple. Rosemary finds them meddlesome and absurd, but Guy begins paying them frequent visits. After a theatrical rival suddenly goes blind, Guy is given an important part in a stage play. Immediately afterward, Guy unexpectedly agrees with Rosemary that it is time to conceive their first child. That night, she dreams of a rough sexual encounter with a huge, inhuman creature with yellow eyes. Rosemary finds claw marks on her breasts and groin the following morning, which Guy dismisses as the results of a hangnail. She subsequently learns that she is pregnant. Rosemary falls severely ill; but her severe pain and weight loss are ignored by everyone around her and attributed to hysteria. Her doctor and Minnie feed her strange and foul concoctions. Rosemary also develops a peculiar craving for raw meat. Guy's performance in the stage play brings him favorable notices, and he gains other, increasingly important roles. He soon begins to talk about a career in Hollywood. After receiving a warning from a friend, Edward "Hutch" Hutchins, who also becomes mysteriously ill, Rosemary discovers that her neighbors are the leaders of a Satanic coven. She suspects that they intend to steal her baby and use it as a sacrifice to the devil. Despite her growing conviction, she is unable to convince anyone else. She comes to believe that she has no one on her side, least of all her own husband. Ultimately, Rosemary finds that she is wrong about the coven's reason for wanting the baby. The baby that she has delivered is the Antichrist, and Guy is not the father; Satan is. 

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In 1914, aliens, known as Mondoshawans, meet their human contact, a priest of a secret order, at an ancient Egyptian temple. They take, for safekeeping, the only weapon capable of defeating a great evil, which appears every 5,000 years. They promise to return the weapon before the great evil's reemergence. The weapon consists of the four classical elements, as four engraved "stones", plus a Fifth Element in a sarcophagus. In 2263, the great evil appears in deep space. It is a giant black fireball, headed for Earth. It destroys an armed Earth spaceship. The Mondoshawans' current contact on Earth, priest Vito Cornelius, informs the President of the Federated Territories of the great evil's history and of the weapon that can stop it. On their way to Earth, the Mondoshawans are ambushed by a crew of Mangalores, hired by Earth industrialist Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg, who obeys the great evil. The Mondoshawan spacecraft is destroyed. The only remaining artifact, a severed hand in metal armor, is brought to New York City. From this, the government uses biotechnology to recreate the original occupant of the sarcophagus: a humanoid woman. Alarmed by the unfamiliar surroundings and high security, she bolts, jumps off a high ledge, and crashes into the flying taxicab of Korben Dallas, a former major in the special forces. The woman is called Leeloo. She remembers her previous life. Dallas delivers her to Cornelius and to Cornelius' apprentice, David. They recognize her as the Fifth Element. As Leeloo recuperates, she tells Cornelius that the stones were not on the Mondoshawan ship. Simultaneously, the Mondoshawans inform Earth's government, while Zorg rages and kills some of the Mangalore crew, for failing to capture the stones. The stones were entrusted to an alien opera singer, the diva Plavalaguna. Earth's military sends Dallas to meet Plavalaguna. A rigged radio contest provides a cover: it awards, to Dallas, a luxury vacation on planet Fhloston, accompanied by flamboyant talk show host Ruby Rhod. It includes a concert by Plavalaguna at a flying hotel. Dallas learns that Leeloo shares his mission, and lets her accompany him on his "vacation". Cornelius instructs David to prepare the temple, then stows away on the luxury spaceship. The Mangalore crew, pursuing the stones for themselves, also board the ship. During the concert, the Mangalore crew attacks and Plavalaguna dies. Dallas extracts the stones from her dead body. He kills the Mangalore leader and the others give up. Rhod describes the fight to his radio audience, as it happens. Meanwhile, Zorg arrives. He shoots and wounds Leeloo, activates a time bomb, and flees with a carrying case which, he presumes, contains the stones. When he discovers that the case is empty, he returns. He manages to deactivate his bomb but a dying Mangalore sets off his own, destroying the hotel and killing Zorg. Meanwhile, Dallas, Cornelius, Leeloo, and Rhod escape in Zorg's private spaceship, with the stones. As the great evil approaches Earth, they meet David at the temple. They deploy the stones but Leeloo, having learned of humanity's own terrible history of war, has given up on life. Dallas declares his love for her and kisses her. In response, Leeloo combines the power of the stones, emitting divine light onto the great evil and defeating it. She and Dallas are hailed as heroes and, as dignitaries wait to greet them, the two embrace passionately in a recovery chamber. 

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Alex Whitman is an architect from New York City who is sent to Las Vegas to supervise the construction of a nightclub that his firm has been hired to build. Alex is a strait-laced WASP-ish type who, while researching possible menu items for the new nightclub, meets Isabel Fuentes, a free-spirited Mexican-American photographer. Alex and Isabel are overtaken by lust at first sight and end up spending the night together; however, their immediate attraction doesn't last in the cold light of day, and they don't see each other for another three months. When they do meet again, it's because Isabel has some interesting news for Alex: she's pregnant with his child. Isabel decides to keep and raise the child. Knowing that becoming a single mom will disappoint her family, she asks Alex to accompany her to a dinner party, hoping that when her family asks about the father of her baby, she can at least say that they met him once. Alex agrees, and in spite of some cultural differences, finds himself more attracted to Isabel's personality and art. Though Isabel is ready to say goodbye after the party, Alex suddenly suggests that they pursue a real relationship. He proposes and they quickly get married (with an Elvis impersonator serving as witness), but after Isabel meets Alex's mom and Alex is confronted by Isabel's father, both start to wonder if "doing the right thing" was just that, especially as Alex tries to balance his career in New York with Isabel's desire to continue working in Nevada. Isabel has a complication with the pregnancy and tells Alex that she lost the baby. Disappointed, Alex returns to working on the nightclub while Isabel goes home to Mexico to recuperate with relatives. Upon realizing that he wants to pursue a family with Isabel more than his career, Alex travels to rural Mexico to find Isabel, where her relatives reveal that she is still very much in love with him and has left for Las Vegas to have her baby (which he only understands as she has left for Las Vegas). He catches up with her at the Hoover Dam, where he discovers she is actually pregnant and she gives birth on the Hoover Dam. The birth of their daughter coincides with their legal divorce, but they soon remarry with both of their families present at the Grand Canyon. 

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Li RM35M4419, nicknamed "Chip" (as in "chip off the old block") by his nonconformist grandfather Jan, is a typical child Member, but through a mistake in genetic programming, he has one green eye. Through his grandfather's encouragement, he learns how to play a game of "wanting things," including imagining what career he might pick if he had the choice. Chip is told by his adviser that "deciding" and "picking" are manifestations of selfishness, and he tries to forget his dreams. As Chip grows up and begins his career, he is mostly a good citizen but commits minor subversive acts, such as procuring art materials for another "nonconformist" member who was denied them. His occasional oddities attract the attention of a secret group of Members of nonconformists, like Chip. There, he meets King, a Medicenter chief who obtains members' records for potential future recruitment to the group; King's beautiful girlfriend, Lilac, a strong-willed and inquisitive woman with unusually-dark skin; and Snowflake, a rare albino member. They teach Chip how to get his treatments reduced so that he can feel more and stronger emotions. Chip begins an affair with Snowflake but is really attracted to Lilac. Chip and Lilac begin to search through old museum maps and soon discover islands around the world that have disappeared from their modern map. They begin to wonder if perhaps other "incurable" members have escaped to the islands. King tells them that the idea is nonsense, but Chip soon learns that King has already interacted with some "incurables" and that they are indeed real. Before he can tell Lilac, Chip's ruse is discovered by his adviser. He and all the other members of the group are captured and treated back into docility (except King, who takes his own life before he can be captured). Some years later, Chip's regular treatment is delayed by an earthquake. In the meanwhile, he begins to "wake up" again and remembers Lilac and the islands. He is able to shield his arm from the treatment nozzle and becomes fully awake for the first time. He locates Lilac again and kidnaps her. At first, she fights him, but as she too becomes more "awake," she remembers the islands and comes willingly. In the process, she is raped by Chip. Finding a convenient abandoned boat on the beach, they head for the nearest island of incurables, Majorca. There, they learn that UniComp, as a last resort, has planted failsafes that eventually lead all incurables to the islands, where they will be trapped forever from the treated population. After living "free" on Majorca, Chip and Lilac eventually marry and have a child together. Chip conceives of a plan to destroy the computer, UniComp, by blowing up its refrigeration system. He recruits other incurables to join him, and they make their way to the mainland. Just as they reach UniComp, one of the incurables, an agent of the programmers, betrays his partners and leads the rest of the group at gunpoint to a secret luxurious underground city beneath UniComp, where they are met by Wei, one of the original planners of the Unification. Wei and the other "programmers" live in UniComp have arranged the test so that the most daring and resourceful incurables will make their way to UniComp. There, they too will live in luxury as programmers. After joining the programmers and a few tentative attempts to confide in someone, Chip shares his misgivings with no one, lies low, and dedicates himself to the task of gaining Wei's confidence. For example, to deceive Wei, Chip consents to the replacement of his green eye with a brown one even though it involves giving up a cherished part of his identity. However, nine months later, a new group of incurables arrives, and Chip leaves the welcome party with the intention of using the newcomers' explosives to blow up the master computer. A physical struggle with Wei, who has the body of a young athlete, results in him bring shot. Just before he is killed, Wei reveals his true motive in creating the dystopia: "there's joy in having it, in controlling, in being the only one." Chip knew all along that it was power hunger, not altruism, that drove Wei to chicanery and murder. On his way up from the underground city towards sunlight, Chip tells an angry programmer: "'There’s joy in having it': those were [Wei's] last words. Everything else was rationalization. And self- deception." The book ends with Chip riding a helicopter toward Majorca, where his wife, son, financial sponsors, and friends are hopefully waiting for him. For the first time in his life, he sees raindrops in daytime, nature's affirmation that the era of slavery and total control is finally over. 

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Young, well-intentioned Barry Kohler (Steve Guttenberg) stumbles upon a secret organisation of Third Reich war criminals holding clandestine meetings in Paraguay and finds that Dr. Josef Mengele (Gregory Peck), the infamous Auschwitz doctor, is with them. He phones Ezra Lieberman (Laurence Olivier), an aging Nazi hunter living in Vienna, Austria, with this information. A highly skeptical Lieberman tries to brush Kohler's claims aside, telling him that it is well known that Mengele is living in Paraguay. Having learned when and where the next meeting to include Mengele is scheduled to occur, Kohler records part of it using a hidden microphone, but is discovered and killed while making another phone call to Lieberman. Before the phone is hung up with Lieberman on the other end, he hears the recorded voice of Mengele ordering a group of ex-Nazis to kill 94 men in nine different countries. These 94 men targeted for assassination by Mengele consist of 16 men in West Germany, 14 men in Sweden, 13 men in the United Kingdom, 12 men in the United States, 10 men in Norway, 9 men in Austria, 8 men in the Netherlands, 6 men in Denmark, and 6 men in Canada. Although frail, Lieberman follows Kohler's leads and begins traveling throughout Europe and North America to investigate the suspicious deaths of a number of aging civil servants. He meets several of their widows and is amazed to find an uncanny resemblance in their adopted, black-haired, blue-eyed sons. It is also made clear that, at the time of their deaths, all the civil servants were aged around 65 and had cold, domineering and abusive attitudes toward their adopted sons, while their wives were around 42 and doted on the sons. Lieberman gains insight from Frieda Maloney (Uta Hagen), an incarcerated former Nazi concentration-camp guard who worked with the adoption agency, before realising during a meeting with Professor Bruckner (Bruno Ganz), an expert on cloning, the terrible truth behind the Nazi plan: Mengele, in the 1960s, had secluded several surrogate mothers in a Brazilian clinic and implanted them with zygotes each carrying a sample of Adolf Hitler's DNA preserved since the Second World War. 94 clones of Hitler had then been born and sent to different parts of the world for adoption. In the hopes that one or more of the boys will turn out like the original Hitler, Mengele has arranged for all of them to be placed with foster parents similar to Hitler's own, and is assassinating their foster fathers at the same age at which Hitler's own died. As Lieberman uncovers more of the plot, Mengele's superiors become more unnerved. After Mengele happens to meet (and then attacks) one of the agents, he thought was in Europe implementing his scheme, Mengele's principal contact, Eduard Seibert (James Mason), informs him that the scheme has been aborted to prevent Lieberman from exposing it to the authorities. Mengele storms out, pledging that the operation will continue. Seibert and his men destroy Mengele's jungle estate after killing his guards and servants. Mengele, however, has left, intent on trying to continue his plan. He travels to rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where one of the Hitler clones, Bobby Wheelock (Jeremy Black), lives on a farm with his parents. There he murders the boy's father (John Dehner), a Doberman pinscher breeder, and waits for Lieberman, who is on his way to the farm to warn Mr. Wheelock of Mengele's intention to kill him. The instant Lieberman arrives and sees Mengele, he attacks the doctor in a fury. Mengele gains the upper hand and shoots Lieberman. He taunts Lieberman by explaining his plan to return Hitler to the world and that he started the operation in Berghof in 1943. Then, with one desperate lunge, Lieberman opens the cupboard where the Dobermans are held and turns them loose. The dogs corner Mengele and attack him. Bobby arrives home from school and calls off the dogs and tries to find out what has happened. The injured Mengele, having now encountered one of his clones for the first time, tells Bobby how much he admires him, and explains that he is cloned from Hitler. Bobby doubts his story, suspicious of Mengele because the dogs are trained to attack anyone who threatens his family. Lieberman tells Bobby that Mengele has killed his father and urges him to notify the police. Bobby checks the house and find his father dead in the basement. He rushes back upstairs and sets the vicious dogs on Mengele once again, coldly and violently biting him to death. Bobby then helps Lieberman, but only after Lieberman promises not to tell the police about the incident. Later, while recovering from his injuries in a hospital, Lieberman is encouraged by David Bennett (John Rubinstein), an American Nazi-hunter, to expose Mengele's scheme to the world. He asks Lieberman to hand over the list (which Lieberman had taken from Mengele's body while Bobby was calling for an ambulance) identifying the names and whereabouts of the other boys from around the world, so that they can be systematically killed before growing up to become bloody tyrants. Lieberman objects on the grounds that they are mere children, and he burns the list before anyone can read it. 

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Inspired by the Moskstraumen, it is couched as a story within a story, a tale told at the summit of a mountain climb in Lofoten, Norway. The story is told by an old man who reveals that he only appears old—"You suppose me a very old man," he says, "but I am not. It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves." The narrator, convinced by the power of the whirlpools he sees in the ocean beyond, is then told of the "old" man's fishing trip with his two brothers a few years ago. Driven by "the most terrible hurricane that ever came out of the heavens", their ship was caught in the vortex. One brother was pulled into the waves; the other was driven mad by the horror of the spectacle, and drowned as the ship was pulled under. At first the narrator only saw hideous terror in the spectacle. In a moment of revelation, he saw that the Maelström is a beautiful and awesome creation. Observing how objects around him were attracted and pulled into it, he deduced that "the larger the bodies, the more rapid their descent" and that spherical- shaped objects were pulled in the fastest. Unlike his brother, he abandoned ship and held on to a cylindrical barrel until he was saved several hours later when the whirlpool temporarily subsided, and he was rescued by some fishermen. The "old" man tells the story to the narrator without any hope that the narrator will believe it. 

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Twelve years after he saved the Earth from an alien invasion, Duke Nukem is a worldwide icon, and has achieved great fame from his heroic deeds. After sampling a video game based on his past heroics (the game Duke plays is a revamped version of the final level of the third episode of Duke Nukem 3D), he arrives on the set of a talk show for an interview. On his way to the show, Duke witnesses a news broadcast announcing that aliens have once again invaded. Unlike previous encounters, the aliens initially appear peaceful and at first seem to pose no harm to the humans of Earth. Duke's talk show appearance is cancelled to allow television stations to cover the alien invasion, and Duke retires to the "Duke Cave", his home. There, he receives a call from the president and General Graves of the Earth Defense Force (EDF). The president orders Duke not to harm the invaders, and adds that he is in diplomatic talks with the alien overlord. Duke obliges this request, but he and Graves remain uneasy about the whole situation from the start. Before he can leave his chambers, he is attacked by hostile aliens who are swearing revenge on Duke. Duke is forced to disobey the president's orders and fight his way through the alien hordes in an effort to save Earth. While fighting through his casino, Duke witnesses the aliens abducting women, including his two live-in pop star girlfriends. Graves tells Duke that the women are being held in the Duke Dome, and that the aliens have a vendetta to settle with Duke. He also warns Duke that the aliens are using the Hoover Dam to power a wormhole so more aliens can come through. Duke travels to the Duke Dome, using a wrecking ball to damage the building to gain access. Inside, he finds swarms of Octabrains and the missing women, who have been impregnated with alien spawn; Duke's girlfriends die after giving "birth" to alien babies, infuriating Duke. Duke finds the Alien Queen in control of the Duke Dome and kills her, but is wounded in the process and blacks out. After regaining consciousness, Duke fights Pigcops and aliens in through the Duke Burger. Soon, he travels to the Hoover Dam in his monster truck; after battling through the dam, he finds his old friend Dylan, mortally wounded. He tells Duke that the reborn Cycloid Emperor is at the dam, and that the only way to shut down the portal is to completely destroy the dam. Before dying, he gives Duke his demolition charges and wishes him luck. Duke places the explosives and destroys the dam, but the currents nearly drown him. Duke is revived by an EDF soldier, and awakens to find the portal gone. The president, who was also at the dam, rages at Duke for ruining his plans to work with the Cycloid Emperor, revealing that the president was actually intending to have the aliens kill Duke and he would cooperate with Cycloid Emperor so he could control the Earth, and that he has ordered a nuclear strike at the site of the dam to wipe out the remaining aliens, intending to leave Duke there to die as revenge for foiling his plans. The Cycloid Emperor emerges and kills the president and his security detail, revealing that he intended to kill the president after the deal. Duke kills the Cycloid Emperor and is rescued by Graves just as the nuclear bomb explodes. The game ends with a satellite surveying the detonation area and listing Duke Nukem as killed in action, to which Duke replies off-screen, "What kind of shit ending is that? I ain't dead. I'm coming back for more!" In a post-credits scene, a short video depicts a press conference, where Duke announces his intent to run for the 69th President of the United States. 

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Lemmy Caution is a secret agent with the code number of 003 from "the Outlands". Entering Alphaville in his Ford Galaxie, he poses as a journalist named Ivan Johnson and claims to work for the Figaro-Pravda. Caution is on a series of missions. First, he searches for the missing agent Henri Dickson (Akim Tamiroff); second, he is to capture or kill the creator of Alphaville, Professor von Braun (Howard Vernon); lastly, he aims to destroy Alphaville and its dictatorial computer, Alpha 60. Alpha 60 is a sentient computer system created by von Braun, which is in complete control of all of Alphaville. Alpha 60 has outlawed free thought and individualist concepts like love, poetry, and emotion in the city, replacing them with contradictory concepts or eliminating them altogether. One of Alpha 60's dictates is that "people should not ask 'why', but only say 'because". People who show signs of emotion are presumed to be acting illogically and are gathered up, interrogated, and executed. In an image reminiscent of George Orwell's concept of Newspeak, there is a dictionary in every hotel room that is continuously updated when words that are deemed to evoke emotion become banned. As a result, Alphaville is an inhuman, alienated society. Images of the E = mc2 and hf = mc2 equations are displayed several times throughout the film as symbols of the regime of logical science that rules Alphaville. At one point, Caution passes through a place called the Grand Omega Minus, from where brainwashed people are sent out to the other "galaxies" to start strikes, revolutions, family rows, and student revolts. As an archetypal American anti-hero private eye in trenchcoat and with weathered visage, Lemmy Caution's old-fashioned machismo conflicts with the puritanical computer (Godard originally wanted to title the film Tarzan versus IBM). The opposition of his role to logic (and that of other dissidents to the regime) is represented by faux-quotations from Capitale de la douleur ("Capital of Pain"), a book of poems by Paul Éluard. Caution meets Dickson, who soon dies in the process of making love to a "Seductress Third Class". Caution then enlists the assistance of Natacha von Braun (Anna Karina), a programmer of Alpha 60 and daughter of Professor von Braun. Natacha is a citizen of Alphaville and when questioned, says that she does not know the meaning of "love" or "conscience". Caution falls in love with her, and his love introduces emotion and unpredictability into the city. Natacha discovers, with the help of Lemmy Caution, that she was actually born outside of Alphaville. (The city name is given as Nueva York—Spanish for New York—instead of either the original English name or the French literal rendering "Nouvelle York".) Professor von Braun (the name is a reference to the German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun) was originally known as Leonard Nosferatu (a tribute to F. W. Murnau's film Nosferatu), but Caution is repeatedly told that Nosferatu no longer exists. The Professor himself talks infrequently, referring only vaguely to his hatred for journalists, and offering Caution the chance to join Alphaville, even going so far as to offer him the opportunity to rule a galaxy. When he refuses Caution's offer to go back to "the outlands", Caution kills him. Alpha 60 converses with Lemmy Caution several times throughout the film, and its voice is seemingly ever-present in the city, serving as a sort of narrator. Caution eventually destroys or incapacitates it by telling it a riddle that involves something Alpha 60 can not comprehend: poetry (although many of Alpha 60's lines are actually quotations from the Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges; the opening line of the film, along with others, is an extract of Borges's essay "Forms of a Legend", and other references throughout the movie are made by Alpha 60 to Borges's "A New Refutation of Time"). The concept of the individual self has been lost to the collectivized citizens of Alphaville, and this is the key to Caution's riddle. At the end, as Paul Misraki's musical score reaches its climax, Natacha realizes that it is her understanding of herself as an individual with desires that saves her, and destroys Alpha 60. The film ends with her line "Je vous aime" ("I love you"). 

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When working woman Kay Norris makes the acquaintance of a handsome and friendly young man who lives in the same "sliver" building, she does not know at first that he is the owner. While keeping a low profile himself, he turns out to know an awful lot about the other inhabitants, including many of their secrets. It turns out that he is a modern-day Peeping Tom who, unknown to everyone, has had surveillance cameras and microphones installed in every single apartment, with his own place in the building serving as his headquarters. The novel is a murder mystery, and the beautiful heroine soon becomes a damsel in distress. Category:1991 American novels Category:American novels adapted into films Category:Bantam Books books Category:Novels by Ira Levin Category:Novels set in New York City Category:Erotic thrillers 

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Conspiracy-theorist and New York City taxi driver Jerry Fletcher (Mel Gibson) continually expounds his ideas to Alice Sutton (Julia Roberts), a lawyer at the Justice Department. She humors him because he once saved her from a mugging, but is unaware he spies on her at her home. Her own work is to solve the mystery of her father (Bert Remsen)'s murder. Seeing suspicious activity everywhere, Jerry identifies some men as CIA workers, follows them into a building, and is captured. The interrogator injects a wheelchair-bound Jerry with LSD and questions him using torture. Jerry experiences terrifying hallucinations and flashbacks, panics, and manages to escape by incapacitating the interrogator by biting his nose and kicking him. Later, after being captured again, Jerry is handcuffed to a hospital bed and forced into a drug-induced sleep. Alice visits, and Jerry persuades her to switch his chart with the criminal in the next bed or he will be dead by morning. When Alice returns the next day, the criminal is dead, allegedly from a heart attack. The CIA, FBI and other agencies are there, led by CIA psychiatrist Dr. Jonas (Patrick Stewart), whose nose is bandaged. Meanwhile Jerry fakes a heart attack and, with Alice’s help, escapes again and later hides in Alice's car. While Alice and FBI Agent Lowry (Cylk Cozart) are examining Jerry's personal items, the CIA arrive and confiscate everything just after Lowry asks to “compare notes.” She declines Lowry's offer to work with her, and later finds Jerry hiding in her car. They leave the hospital and on the way to Jerry’s apartment Jerry explains someone is likely following her. To Jerry’s instruction, Alice switches lanes and realizes someone is following her. It turns out to be Lowry who later stops following her. They go inside Jerry's well secured apartment where he tells her about the conspiracy newsletter he produces. Just when Alice has decided Jerry is crazy, a SWAT team breaks in. Jerry sets everything on fire and they leave through his elaborate secret trapdoor exit. In the room below, there is a large mural on the wall, which features both Alice on her horse and the triple smokestacks of a factory. As Jerry’s apartment is burning, Jerry and Alice escape as Jerry wears a Fire-Fighter Suit to avoid suspicion. Jerry and Alice end up escaping the scene. The pair go to her apartment and Jerry accidentally reveals he's been watching her. Alice’s response to realizing he’s been watching her is to kick him out of her apartment. On the street below, Jerry confronts Lowry and his partner staking out her place, and he warns them at gunpoint not to hurt her. After being tracked to a bookstore, Jerry sees operatives rappelling down from black helicopters and hides in a theater, escaping by causing a panic through saying “Bomb!” Alice calls each person on Jerry's newsletter mail-list and finds that all have recently died, except one. Jerry uses a ruse to get her out of the office, and then immobilizes the operatives watching her. During their escape he tells her that he fell in love with her at first sight, then flees on a subway train when she brushes off his feelings. She goes to see the last surviving person on the subscription list, and finds it is Jonas. He explains that Jerry was brainwashed during Dr. Jonas' time with Project MKUltra to become an assassin, and claims that Jerry killed her father. She agrees to help find Jerry, who sends her a message to meet him. He ditches the agents following them with a pre-arranged car transfer, and he drives her to her father's private horse stables in Connecticut, but meanwhile Alice secretly calls her office so that Jonas can track her phone. At the stables, Jerry remembers that he was sent to kill her father, but found he could not and had become his friend instead. Jerry tells Alice that he promised to watch over her before the judge was killed by another assassin. Jonas' men capture Jerry, and a sniper tries to get Alice, but she escapes. Meanwhile, Alice finds Lowry and forces him at gunpoint to admit that he is not FBI, but from a "secret agency that watches the other agencies". He says they have been using the unwitting Jerry to uncover and stop Jonas. Alice goes to the site of the smokestacks from Jerry's mural and sees a mental hospital next door. There she hears and talks to Jerry through a vent, and an attendant she had bribed shows her up to an unused wing. She breaks in and finds Jerry. As Jonas catches them, Lowry arrives with his men and attacks Jonas' men. Jerry attempts to drown Jonas, is shot by Jonas from under the water, and Alice, who has regained consciousness after being knocked out, shoots Jonas six times. After killing Jonas, Alice tells Jerry that she loves him before he is taken away in an ambulance. Some time later, a grieving Alice visits Jerry's grave and leaves a pin that he had given her. She returns to riding her horse that she had stopped riding after her father's murder. While watching Alice from a car with Lowry, Jerry keeps to his agreement to not contact her until all of Jonas' other subjects are caught. As they drive away singing "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", Alice finds the pin she had left at Jerry's "grave" attached to her saddle, and smiles as she continues riding. 

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After attending the Springfield Elementary School Christmas pageant, the Simpsons prepare for the holiday season. Bart and Lisa write letters to Santa; Lisa asks for a pony and Bart wants a tattoo, but Marge and Homer forbid Bart from getting a tattoo and that they cannot afford to buy a pony for Lisa. The next day, Marge takes the kids Christmas shopping at the mall. Bart sneaks away to get a tattoo that reads Mother on his arm, thinking Marge will like it. Before the artist can finish the tattoo, Marge finds Bart and drags him to the dermatologist to have it removed. She spends the family's entire holiday budget on the procedure thinking that Homer's Christmas bonus will cover gift expenses. At the power plant, Homer's mean-spirited boss, Mr. Burns, announces that employees will receive no Christmas bonuses this year. When he learns Marge spent the family's holiday money on tattoo removal, Homer moonlights as a shopping mall Santa at the suggestion of his friend Barney Gumble. While at the mall on Christmas Eve, Bart removes Santa's beard, exposing Homer's secret. Bart apologizes for the prank and praises his father for moonlighting to give the family Christmas presents. After Homer's Santa gig pays far less than expected due to high tax deductions, he and Bart receive a greyhound racing tip from Barney. At Springfield Downs, Homer bets all his money on a last-minute entry named Santa's Little Helper, a 99–1 long shot. The greyhound finishes last. As Homer and Bart leave the track, they see the dog's owner berate and abandon him for losing the race. Bart pleads with Homer to keep the dog as a pet; they return home and Bart introduces Santa's Little Helper as their family dog while Homer confesses that he didn't get his Christmas bonus. The family is overjoyed by Homer's gesture and celebrates by singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". 

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Nick (William Powell) and Nora Charles (Myrna Loy) return from vacation to their home in San Francisco on New Year's Eve, where Nora's stuffy family expect the couple to join them for a formal dinner. Nick is despised by Nora's Aunt Katherine (Jessie Ralph), the family matriarch, as his immigrant heritage and experience as a "flatfoot" are considered beneath Nora. Nora's cousin Selma (Elissa Landi) tells Nora that her ne'er-do-well husband Robert (Alan Marshal) has been missing for three days. David Graham (James Stewart), is Selma's earlier fiancé, and an old friend of Nora's family. He offers to pay Robert $25,000 ($ in dollars) to leave and grant Selma a divorce. Nora successfully badgers Nick into helping to locate Robert. Lobby card for After the Thin Man (1936) Robert is at the LiChi Club, a Chinese nightclub, where he's been conducting an affair with Polly (Penny Singleton), the star performer. Unknown to Robert, Polly and club owner Dancer (Joseph Calleia) plan to steal the money David will pay Robert. Polly's brother, Phil Byrnes, wants money from her, but Dancer throws him out, just as Nick and Nora arrive looking for Robert. They tell Robert about David's offer, and he agrees to it. After being paid off, Robert sneaks back into Aunt Katherine's home to retrieve some clothes. Nick sees Dancer and nightclub co-owner Lum Kee (William Law) each leave the club on their own as well. Robert leaves Aunt Katherine's at the stroke of midnight, and is shot dead in the foggy street. David finds Selma standing over Robert, a gun in her hand. Lt. Abrams (Sam Levene) considers Selma the prime suspect, and her fragile mental state only strengthens his belief. Selma insists that she never fired her gun, but her claim cannot be backed up as David threw the gun into San Francisco Bay (thinking she was guilty). Nick begins to investigate to find the true murderer. Someone throws a rock with a note tied to it through the window of Nick and Nora's home. The note accuses Polly and Dancer of conspiring to kill Robert, and reveals that Phil Byrnes is an ex-con and Polly's husband. Lt. Abrams has found several checks from Robert to Polly, including one for $20,000, but Nick sees that all but one are forged. Nick and Lt. Abrams find Phil murdered in his hotel room. Nick investigates Polly's apartment, and discovers that someone, using the name "Anderson", had bugged it from the apartment above. While in the upper apartment, Nick hears Dancer enter Polly's home. Nick pursues Dancer into the basement, but Dancer disappears. Nick finds the body of the building custodian, Pedro. Nora identifies Pedro as her father's former gardener. She finds a photo in Pedro's room of Pedro with the other servants. Lt. Abrams says someone tried to call Nick from the building just before Pedro was killed. Nick has Lt. Abrams gather all the suspects in Anderson's apartment. Dancer and Polly confess they intended to use a forged check to steal Robert's money, but claim they are innocent of murder. David says he has not seen Pedro in six years, but remembers his long white mustache. But Nick realizes that in the picture Nora found, Pedro had a small gray mustache. David must have seen Pedro recently. Nick now reconstructs the murder. David is "Anderson". He hated Robert for taking Selma from him, and secretly hated Selma for leaving him. He rented the apartment so he could spy on Polly and Robert in her apartment and kill him there. But instead he killed Robert on the street and tried to frame Selma for the crime. Spying on Polly, he overheard Phil's real identity and Phil's plan to blackmail David. David murdered Phil, then threw the message rock. However, Pedro recognized David as the mysterious "Anderson", so David killed him as well. David pulls out a gun and threatens to kill Selma and then himself. Lum Kee flings his hat in David's face, allowing Nick and Lt. Abrams to overpower him. Nick and Nora leave San Francisco for the East Coast on a train, accompanied by Selma. Later, alone with Nora, Nick sees she is knitting a baby's sock, and realizes that she is pregnant. Nora gently chides him, saying, "And you call yourself a detective." 

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In this adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's "The Farewell Murder", Nick (William Powell) and Nora (Myrna Loy) Charles are back in New York with Asta and a new arrival - Nicky Jr. They are invited by Colonel Burr MacFay (C. Aubrey Smith) to spend the weekend at his house on Long Island. McFay, the former business partner of Nora's father, and the administrator of her fortune, desperately wants Nick to put his well-known detective skills to work, as he has been receiving threats from Phil Church (Sheldon Leonard), a very shady character. When MacFay is killed, Church seems to be the obvious suspect. However, Nick is skeptical. He suspects there is something far more complicated going on. MacFay's housekeeper, his adopted daughter, and various hangers-on all may have had an interest in seeking the old man's demise. 

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The unnamed narrator of the story opens with a lengthy commentary on the nature and practice of analytical reasoning, then describes the circumstances under which he first met Dupin during an extended visit to Paris. The two share rooms in a dilapidated old mansion and allow no visitors, having cut off all contact with past acquaintances and venturing outside only at night. "We existed within ourselves alone," the narrator states. One evening, Dupin demonstrates his analytical prowess by deducing the narrator's thoughts about a particular stage actor, based on clues gathered from the narrator's previous words and actions. During the remainder of that evening and the following morning, Dupin and the narrator read with great interest the newspaper accounts of a baffling double murder. Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter have been found dead at their home in the Rue Morgue, a fictional street in Paris. The mother was found in a yard behind the house, with multiple broken bones and her throat so deeply cut that her head fell off when the body was moved. The daughter was found strangled to death and stuffed upside down into a chimney. The murders occurred in a fourth-floor room that was locked from the inside; on the floor were found a bloody straight razor, several bloody tufts of gray hair, and two bags of gold coins. Several witnesses reported hearing two voices at the time of the murder, one male and French, but disagreed on the language spoken by the other. The speech was unclear, and all witnesses claimed not to know the language they believed the second voice to be speaking. A bank clerk named Adolphe Le Bon, who had delivered the gold coins to the ladies the day before, is arrested even though there is no other evidence linking him to the crime. Remembering a service that Le Bon once performed for him, Dupin becomes intrigued and offers his assistance to "G–", the prefect of police. Because none of the witnesses can agree on the language spoken by the second voice, Dupin concludes they were not hearing a human voice at all. He and the narrator examine the house thoroughly; the following day, Dupin dismisses the idea of both Le Bon's guilt and a robbery motive, citing the fact that the gold was not taken from the room. He also points out that the murderer would have had to have superhuman strength to force the daughter's body up the chimney. He formulates a method by which the murderer could have entered the room and killed both women, involving an agile climb up a lightning rod and a leap to a set of open window shutters. Showing an unusual tuft of hair he recovered from the scene, and demonstrating the impossibility of the daughter being strangled by a human hand, Dupin concludes that an "Ourang-Outang" (orangutan) killed the women. He has placed an advertisement in the local newspaper asking if anyone has lost such an animal, and a sailor soon arrives looking for it. Illustration by Daniel Vierge of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", 1870 The sailor offers to pay a reward, but Dupin is interested only in learning the circumstances behind the two murders. The sailor explains that he captured the orangutan while in Borneo and brought it back to Paris, but had trouble keeping it under control. When he saw the orangutan attempting to shave its face with his straight razor, imitating his morning grooming, it fled into the streets and reached the Rue Morgue, where it climbed up and into the house. The orangutan seized the mother by the hair and was waving the razor, imitating a barber; when she screamed in fear, it flew into a rage, ripped her hair out, slashed her throat, and strangled the daughter. The sailor climbed up the lightning rod in an attempt to catch the animal, and the two voices heard by witnesses belonged to it and to him. Fearing punishment by its master, the orangutan threw the mother's body out the window and stuffed the daughter into the chimney before fleeing. The sailor sells the orangutan, Le Bon is released from custody, and G– mentions that people should mind their own business once Dupin tells him the story. Dupin comments to the narrator that G– is "somewhat too cunning to be profound", but admires his ability "de nier ce qui est, et d'expliquer ce qui n'est pas" (a quote from Julie, or the New Heloise by Jean-Jacques Rousseau: "to deny that which is, and explain that which is not"). 

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The unnamed narrator is with the famous Parisian amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin when they are joined by G-, prefect of the Paris police. The prefect has a case he would like to discuss with Dupin. A letter from the queen's lover has been stolen from her boudoir by the unscrupulous Minister D—. D— was in the room, saw the letter, and switched it for a letter of no importance. He has been blackmailing the queen. The prefect makes two deductions with which Dupin does not disagree: # The contents of the letter have not been revealed, as this would have led to certain circumstances that have not arisen. Therefore, Minister D— still has the letter in his possession. # The ability to produce the letter at a moment's notice is almost as important as actual possession of the letter. Therefore, he must have the letter close at hand. The prefect says that he and his police detectives have searched D-'s town house and have found nothing. They checked behind the wallpaper and under the carpets. His men have examined the tables and chairs with magnifying glasses and then probed the cushions with needles but have found no sign of interference; the letter is not hidden in these places. Dupin asks the prefect if he knows what he is seeking, and the prefect reads a minute description of the letter, which Dupin memorizes. The prefect then bids them good day. A month later, the prefect returns, still unsuccessful in his search. He is motivated to continue his fruitless search by the promise of a large reward, recently doubled, upon the letter's safe return, and he will pay 50,000 francs to anyone who can help him. Dupin asks him to write that check now and he will give him the letter. The prefect is astonished, but knows that Dupin is not joking. He writes the check, and Dupin produces the letter. The prefect determines that it is genuine and races to deliver it to the queen. Alone together, the narrator asks Dupin how he found the letter. Dupin explains the Paris police are competent within their limitations, but have underestimated with whom they are dealing. The prefect mistakes the Minister D— for a fool because he is a poet. For example, Dupin explains how an eight- year-old boy made a small fortune from his friends at a game called Odds and Evens. The boy had determined the intelligence of his opponents and play upon that to interpret their next move. He explains that D— knew the police detectives would have assumed that the blackmailer would have concealed the letter in an elaborate hiding place, and thus hid it in plain sight. The letter stolen again Dupin says he had visited the minister at his hotel. Complaining of weak eyes he wore a pair of green spectacles, the true purpose of which was to disguise his eyes as he searched for the letter. In a cheap card rack hanging from a dirty ribbon, he saw a half-torn letter and recognized it as the letter of the story's title. Striking up a conversation with D— about a subject in which the minister is interested, Dupin examined the letter more closely. It did not resemble the letter the prefect described so minutely; the writing was different, and it was sealed not with the "ducal arms" of the S— family, but with D—'s monogram. Dupin noticed that the paper was chafed as if the stiff paper was first rolled one way and then another. Dupin concluded that D— wrote a new address on the reverse of the stolen one, re-folded it the opposite way and sealed it with his own seal. Dupin left a snuff box behind as an excuse to return the next day. Resuming the same conversation they had begun the previous day, D— was startled by a gunshot in the street. While he went to investigate, Dupin switched D—'s letter for a duplicate. Dupin explains that the gunshot distraction was arranged by him and that he left a duplicate letter to ensure his ability to leave the hotel without D— suspecting his actions. If he had tried to seize it openly, Dupin surmises D— might have had him killed. As both a political supporter of the queen and old enemy of the minister [who had done an evil deed to Dupin in Vienna in the past], Dupin also hopes that D— will try to use the power he no longer has, to his political downfall, and at the end be presented with a quotation from Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon's play Atrée et Thyeste that implies Dupin was the thief: Un dessein si funeste, S'il n'est digne d'Atrée, est digne de Thyeste (If such a sinister design isn't worthy of Atreus, it is worthy of Thyestes). 

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Defense lawyer Stephen Ashe (Lionel Barrymore) successfully defends known gangster Ace Wilfong (Clark Gable) from a murder charge, despite his knowledge of Ace's other illegal activities. His upper-class family has all but disowned him and his daughter Jan (Norma Shearer), due to Stephen's alcoholism and Jan's free spirited willfulness. Jan is engaged to clean-cut Dwight Winthrop (Leslie Howard), but their relationship is threatened when she meets Ace and becomes enamored of him and his exciting life. As Stephen continues to slip deeper into alcoholism, Jan breaks her engagement with Dwight and begins a clandestine affair with Ace, which grows into love. This comes to a head when Ace asks a drunken Stephen if he can marry Jan; Stephen, offended by the request, angrily refuses, and when he discovers Jan in Ace's boudoir, takes her home. They have an argument over their respective vices, and Jan proposes a deal: she will never see Ace again if Stephen will give up drinking. Despite knowing he cannot keep his promise, Stephen agrees, and the two of them leave for a cleansing camping holiday, along with Stephen's fiercely loyal assistant Eddie (James Gleason). After three months of sobriety, Stephen buys a bottle of liquor and boards a train for an unknown destination. Jan returns home to find her family has cut her off; feeling despondent, she visits Ace. He reacts angrily and possessively to her return and informs her that they will be married the next day. Jan slowly realizes what sort of man he really is, and sneaks away. Ace follows her to her apartment and, after a brief confrontation involving Eddie and Dwight, threatens Jan that she cannot get out of marrying him, and that if she marries Dwight he (Ace) will make sure Dwight is killed. Dwight goes to Ace's gambling club and kills him, then turns himself in for the murder. He tells the police that it was over a gambling debt, to protect Jan's reputation even though it will mean his own execution. Jan finds Stephen in a flophouse, seriously ill from his drinking binge, and brings him to Dwight's trial. Over the objections of both Dwight and the prosecuting attorney, Stephen puts Jan on the witness stand and brings out the full details of her relationship with Ace, and the true reason Dwight killed him. In an emotional appeal to the jury, Stephen takes the blame for everything that happened, explaining that his alcoholism meant that he had failed to be a proper father to Jan until it was too late. He then collapses to the floor, dead. Dwight is acquitted and, as Jan prepares to leave for a new life in New York, promises to follow her. 

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Dr. Henry Jekyll (Fredric March), a kind English doctor in Victorian London, is certain that within each man lurks impulses for both good and evil. He is desperately in love with his fiancée Muriel Carew (Rose Hobart) and wants to marry her immediately. But her father, Brigadier General Sir Danvers Carew (Halliwell Hobbes), orders them to wait. One night, while walking home with his colleague, Dr. John Lanyon (Holmes Herbert), Jekyll spots a bar singer, Ivy Pierson (Miriam Hopkins), being attacked by a man outside her boarding house. Jekyll drives the man away and carries Ivy up to her room to attend to her. Ivy tries to seduce Jekyll but, though he is tempted, he leaves with Lanyon. When Sir Danvers takes Muriel to Bath, Jekyll begins to experiment with drugs that he believes will unleash his evil side. After imbibing a concoction of these drugs, he transforms into Edward Hyde—an impulsive, violent, amoral man who indulges his every desire. Hyde finds Ivy in the music hall where she works. He offers to financially support her in return for her company. They stay at her boarding house where Hyde sexually abuses and psychologically manipulates her. When Hyde reads in the paper that Sir Danvers and Muriel are planning to return to London, Hyde leaves Ivy but threatens her that he'll return when she least expects it. Overcome with guilt, Jekyll sends £50 to Ivy. On the advice of her landlady, Ivy goes to see Dr. Jekyll and recognizes him as the man who saved her from abuse that night. She tearfully tells him about her situation with Hyde, and Jekyll reassures her that she will never see Hyde again. But the next night, while walking to a party at Muriel's where the wedding date is to be announced, Jekyll spontaneously changes into Hyde. Rather than attend the party, Hyde goes to Ivy's room and murders her. Hyde returns to Jekyll's house but is refused admission by the butler. Desperate, Hyde writes a letter to Lanyon instructing him to take certain chemicals from Jekyll's laboratory and take them home. When Hyde arrives, Lanyon pulls a gun on him and demands that Hyde take him to Jekyll. With no other choice, Hyde drinks the formula and changes back into Jekyll before a shocked Lanyon. Aware that he cannot control the transformations, Jekyll goes to the Carew home and breaks off the engagement. After he leaves, he stands on the terrace and watches Muriel cry. This triggers another transformation and, as Hyde, he enters the house and assaults Muriel. Sir Danvers tries to stop him, but Hyde beats him to death with Jekyll's walking stick then flees back to Jekyll's laboratory where he takes the formula again and reverts to Jekyll. Lanyon recognizes the broken cane left at the crime scene and takes the police to Jekyll's home. Jekyll tells them that Hyde has already left, Lanyon insists that Jekyll and Hyde are one and the same. The stress causes another transformation into Hyde and, after a fierce struggle, Hyde is shot by the police. Dying, he transforms back into Jekyll. 

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The story revolves around a husband-and-wife acting team. Simply because he is insecure, the husband suspects his wife could be capable of infidelity. The husband disguises himself as a guardsman with a thick accent, woos his wife under his false identity, and ends up seducing her. The couple stays together, and at the end the wife tells the husband that she knew it was him, but played along with the deception. 

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Nick and Nora Charles are looking forward to a relaxing day at a racetrack, but when a jockey accused of throwing a race is found shot to death, Police Lieutenant Abrams requests Nick's help. The trail leads to a gambling syndicate that operates out of a wrestling arena, a murdered reporter, and a pretty secretary whose boyfriend has been framed. Along the way, Nick and Nora must contend with a wild wrestling match, a dizzying day at a merry-go-round (accompanied by Nick, Jr.), and a table- clearing restaurant brawl. 

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A charity benefit sponsored by David Thayer is staged aboard the S.S. Fortune, Phil Brant's gambling ship. The entertainment is provided by a jazz band led by Tommy Drake and featuring singer Fran Page and talented but unstable clarinetist Buddy Hollis. After a set, Drake informs a displeased Brant that he is quitting, having gotten a much better booking through Mitchell Talbin. However, Drake has a problem: he owes gangster Al Amboy $12,000. When Amboy (who is at the party) hears the news, he demands full payment that night. Drake begs Talbin to give him an advance, but Talbin is unwilling to part with such a large sum. In desperation, Drake sneaks into Brant's office and opens the safe, when he is shot from behind and killed. Brant and socialite Janet Thayer elope, as her father David disapproves of Brant's lower-class background. The next morning, they show up at Nick and Nora Charles's apartment, having learned that Brant is the prime suspect in the murder. When a bullet narrowly misses Brant, Nick turns him in to the police, having decided it is safer for all concerned. Then Nick starts investigating. Sneaking aboard the Fortune, Nick discovers on the back of a sheet of music a receipt signed by Amboy acknowledging that Drake's debt had been paid. Nick then runs into Drake's band, allowed back on board to collect their instruments. When he questions them, he learns that the bandleader had many enemies, among them Buddy Hollis. Musician Clarence "Clinker" Krause agrees to help Nick track Buddy down, but they have no luck. Nick and Nora visit a hostile Janet. The bullet that killed Drake likely came from an antique gun, and Nick knows Janet's father is an avid collector. Nick finds that one gun is missing from Mr. Thayer's collection. Janet leaves after getting a telephone call. Nick and Nora follow her to Fran's apartment where they find Fran's body, recently stabbed in the back. Janet claims Fran called to sell her some information, but that she arrived after Fran was killed. Nick finds a matchbook from a hotel in Poughkeepsie that eventually leads him to a sanitarium where Buddy is undergoing treatment. The musician is too badly shaken to answer Nick's questions, though Nora's presence seems to calm him down. When Nora sneaks back later by herself, Buddy becomes agitated, confesses to the murder, pulls out the antique gun, and tries to shoot Nora but misses. Nick does not believe the deranged man's confession as Drake was slain by a well-aimed shot. Nick gathers all the suspects by arranging a party on the reopened Fortune and announces that Buddy has fully recovered and that he will reveal the murderer's identity that night. It is Nora who notices the crucial clue: Amboy's wife shows up wearing a valuable necklace that matches the earrings owned by Mitchell Talbin's wife, Phyllis. Sometime later, the necklace mysteriously reappears on Phyllis's neck. When Nick confronts Mitchell, Phyllis reveals that it was she who paid off her lover Drake's debt using the necklace. As Nick prompts Buddy to finger the killer, Mitchell confesses to both killings and pulls out a gun. An enraged Phyllis shoots him first, but her husband is only wounded. Despite Nick's pleas to desist, she fires repeatedly, finishing the job. 

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Nick and Nora visit Nick's parents (Lucile Watson and Harry Davenport) in Nick's hometown, Sycamore Springs, in New England. The residents are convinced that Nick is in town on an investigation, despite Nick's repeated denials. However, when aircraft factory employee Peter Berton (Ralph Brooks) seeks out Nick and is shot dead before he can reveal anything, Nick is on the case. An old childhood friend, Dr. Bruce Clayworth (Lloyd Corrigan), performs the autopsy and extracts a pistol bullet. Then, when Nick searches Berton's room for clues, he is knocked unconscious by Crazy Mary (Anne Revere), a local eccentric. Nora's innocent purchase of a painting for Nick's birthday present turns out to be the key to the mystery. When she shows it to her husband, it brings back unpleasant memories for him, so she donates it to a charity bazaar. When Edgar Draque (Leon Ames) offers Nora a large sum for the painting, Nick wonders why it is so valuable. Nick learns that Draque's wife Helena (Helen Vinson) bought the artwork, but she is knocked out and the painting disappears. Nick discovers that Crazy Mary is Berton's mother and goes to see her, only to come across her lifeless body. Nick and Nora's dog Asta finds the painting in her shack. Nick puts the pieces together and has the police bring all the suspects to his father's house. (Early on, it is revealed that Nick's father, Dr. Bertram Charles, has never been overly impressed with his son's unusual career choice, so this gives Nick an opportunity to change his father's mind.) Using Dr. Charles's fluoroscope, Nick shows that there is a blueprint hidden underneath the paint. Several people identify it as part of the specifications for a new aircraft propeller worth a great deal to a "foreign power". Berton had copied the blueprints and concealed the copies under five paintings. He had a change of heart and was going to confess all to Nick, but was killed by the spies he was dealing with. Nick has a souvenir World War II Japanese Nambu sniper rifle belonging to Dr. Clayworth's brother brought in, and claims it was the murder weapon. Then, after proving that the Draques are members of the spy ring, Nick reveals the identity of its leader: Dr. Bruce Clayworth. Clayworth's first slip was the bullet he showed Nick. Nick knew a handgun bullet would not have the power to penetrate as far into Berton's body as the real one went. Clayworth grabs the rifle. He confesses to the murder, and also to a deep hatred for Nick for always being better than him in their youth. He tries to shoot his nemesis, only to find that Nick had taken the precaution of removing the firing pin. Nick's father is very impressed. 

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Flight Lieutenant William Terrance "Terry" Decker of 56 Squadron Royal Flying Corps lands his Nieuport biplane on an American airbase in France, after flying through a strange cloud. He is immediately accosted by provost marshal Major Wilson, who is dumbfounded by Decker's archaic appearance. Decker, likewise, is baffled, but by the unexplainable large modern aircraft; "We had no idea you were so advanced!" He is then taken into custody and questioned by the American base commander, Major General George Harper, and by Wilson. Decker snaps to attention, identifying himself as being from the UK's Royal Flying Corps (the predecessor of the modern Royal Air Force). This puzzles Harper and Wilson. Harper, seeing Decker's antique uniform, queries Decker if a vintage air show is nearby, or if he is making a film - Decker has no idea of what he is asked. He then asks Harper: "Excuse me sir, but where exactly am I?" Harper sarcastically responds, "Where exactly did you think you were?", to which Decker says, "Well, I thought I was landing at 56th Squadron RFC." "56th Squadron RFC? Wasn't that..." Wilson replies. Further confounded, Wilson asks Decker "What's today's date?", to which Decker answers "March the 5th". "What year?" "Why, 1917." "1917?!", Harper incredulously says. "Yes, that's correct...well, isn't it?" "It's March the fifth, 1959, lieutenant". Decker is almost speechless. Naturally, neither Harper nor Wilson believes Decker is truly from 1917. Decker tells the officers his flying partner Alexander Mackaye and he were fighting seven German aircraft; Mackaye was shot down and Decker escaped into a cloud. The Americans, to Decker's astonishment, inform him Mackaye is alive and is an air vice marshal in the Royal Air Force, a war hero from World War II who saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives by shooting down German bombers over London. The American officers add that Air Vice Marshal Mackaye, in addition to being alive and well, is coming to the base that very day for an inspection. Decker says that is impossible, as Mackaye is dead. Harper, at this time, confiscates Decker's pistol and personal effects. Later, Wilson and Decker are alone in a small room, Major Wilson tries to help Decker remember what happened. Decker finally confesses that he has consistently avoided combat throughout his service, and that he deliberately abandoned the greatly outnumbered Mackaye when the two were attacked by the German fighters. "I'm a coward!" Decker blurts. He refuses to believe that Mackaye somehow survived against such odds. When Wilson suggests that someone else helped Mackaye, Decker realizes that he has been given a second chance. He tells the American officer that no one was within 50 miles who could have come to Mackaye's aid, so if Mackaye survived, it had to be because Decker went back himself. Knowing he cannot have much time to go back to 1917, Decker pleads with Wilson to release him from custody. When Wilson refuses, Decker assaults him and a guard and hurriedly escapes (without his badge and personal items). Running outside, he locates his plane, punches a mechanic who tries to get in his way, and starts the plane's engine. He is about to take off when Wilson catches up and puts a pistol to his head. Decker tells Wilson he will have to shoot him to stop him, as he would rather die than remain a coward. After hesitating, Wilson allows him to escape and Decker flies his plane into white clouds and vanishes. Major Wilson is rebuked by Major General Harper for believing such a fantastic story and for allowing "that madman" to escape. When Mackaye arrives and takes a seat, Wilson asks him, "Sir, did you ever know a man named William Terrence Decker?" Mackaye is surprised: "Terry Decker?! Oh I should know him - he saved my life". Mackaye proceeds to recount how Decker and he were attacked by seven German aircraft while out on patrol. Decker, in his fit of cowardice, flew away, disappearing in a cloud, with Mackaye thinking at first that Decker had abandoned him. Suddenly, "from out of nowhere, it seemed", Decker came diving out of the cloud with his aircraft guns blazing, and proceeded to shoot down three of the German planes before being shot down himself. With Decker's unbelievable story now corroborated by Mackaye, Wilson comes to believe what Decker had told him. "Then he did get back," he says to himself. Mackaye does not understand why Wilson said this. General Harper, now also beginning to believe Decker, asks Mackaye if the Germans returned Decker's personal items, to which Mackaye responds no. Baffled, Harper then shows Mackaye the confiscated identification photo card and other personal effects of his young friend Decker, who sacrificed his life for Mackaye, startling him. When Mackaye reverently asks, "Where in Heaven's name did you get these?", Harper responds, "They're his?" "Yes," Mackaye softly says, then sternly demands, "Now what the devil is this all about?!" Major Wilson then suggests, "Maybe you'd better sit down, Old Leadbottom", shocking Mackaye further with that nickname known only to Decker and him, from over 42 years earlier. "What did you call me?", he incredulously asks. 

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Both the duke and duchess have an eye for beauty and other partners. The duke presently fancies a young woman who poses as an artist's model. The duchess has her eye on the famous artist, Benvenuto Cellini, who is in the palace making a set of gold plates to be used at ducal banquets. Cellini purportedly hypnotizes young women, and cuckolds the duke of Florence. The somewhat oblivious duke is loath to punish the young man because Cellini fashions gold wares for him, but throws him into the torture chamber. However, a goblet of poisoned wine solves the problem. 

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The show centers around Donald and adolescent versions of his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Donald works as a cameraman alongside Daisy, who is a reporter. The group travel around the world looking for a big scoop. Huey, Dewey and Louie have more distinctive personalities than when they had been presented as younger. They usually resort to extreme and strange measures to avoid getting into trouble with their uncle and to achieve their ambitions. They usually do this by tricking Donald, or whoever else they wish to manipulate, but they usually feel guilty about it. Huey, Dewey and Louie share similar passions such as listening to rock music, getting revenge on those who anger them, impressing girls, getting money, pulling pranks, playing games and reading comics. They also share a profound knowledge of cars and mechanics. 

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"A Hunger Artist" is told retrospectively through third-person narration. The narrator looks back several decades from "today", to a time when the public marveled at the professional hunger artist. It then depicts the waning interest in such displays. The story begins with a general description of "the hunger artist" and then narrows in on a single performer, the protagonist. The hunger artist performed in a cage for the curious spectators, and was attended by teams of watchers (usually three butchers) who ensured that he was not secretly eating. Despite such precautions, many, including some of the watchers themselves, were convinced that the hunger artist cheated. Such suspicions annoyed the hunger artist, as did the forty-day limit imposed on his fasting by his promoter, or "impresario". The impresario insisted that after forty days public sympathy for the hunger artist inevitably declined. The hunger artist, however, found the time limit irksome and arbitrary, as it prevented him from bettering his own record, from fasting indefinitely. At the end of a fast the hunger artist, amid highly theatrical fanfare, would be carried from his cage and made to eat, both of which he always resented. These performances, followed by intervals of recuperation, were repeated for many years. Despite his fame, the hunger artist felt dissatisfied and misunderstood. If a spectator, observing his apparent melancholy, tried to console him, he would erupt in fury, shaking the bars of his cage. The impresario would punish such outbursts by apologizing to the audience, pointing out that irritability was a consequence of fasting. He would then mention the hunger artist's boast that he could fast much longer than he was doing, but would show photographs of the hunger artist near death at the end of a previous fast. In this way he suggested that the hunger artist's sadness and poor physique was caused by fasting, when, in the hunger artist's view, he was depressed because of the premature cessation of his fasts. The impresario's "perversion of the truth" further exasperated the hunger artist. Seemingly overnight, popular tastes changed and public fasting went out of fashion. The hunger artist broke his ties with the impresario and hired himself to a circus, where he hoped to perform truly prodigious feats of fasting. No longer a main attraction, he was given a cage on the outskirts of the circus, near the animal cages. Although the site was readily accessible, and crowds thronged past on their way to see the animals, any spectators who stopped to see him created an obstruction in the flow of people on their way to the animals. At first the hunger artist looked forward to the passing of the crowds, but in time he grew irritated by the noise and disruption caused by the people, and the stench, the roaring, and the feeding of the animals depressed him. Eventually, the hunger artist was completely ignored. No one, not even the artist himself, counted the days of his fast. One day an overseer noticed the hunger artist's cage with its dirty straw. He wondered why the cage was unused; when he and the attendants inspected it, however, they found the hunger artist near death. Before he died he asked forgiveness and confessed that he should not be admired, since the reason he fasted was simply that he could not find food to his liking. The hunger artist was buried with the straw of his cage and replaced by a panther. Spectators crowded about the panther's cage because the panther took so much joy in life, unlike the hunger artist. The story also mentions that the panther was always brought the food he liked. 

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Phantasy Star is set in the Algol star system which consists of three planets: the lush and green Palma, the arid and barren Motavia, and the icy and desolate Dezoris. Algol is ruled by King Lassic, who while originally benevolent, becomes a cruel, sociopathic tyrant. After a string of harsh political changes, small pockets of rebellion emerge but are mostly ineffective against Lassic's iron rule. One such rebel named Nero is killed by Lassic's forces, and his sister Alis swears revenge. Alis builds a party of adventurers including a warrior named Odin, a wizard named Noah, and a catlike creature named Myau. Together, they embark on an adventure spanning the three planets, meeting with townspeople, battling enemies, and finding special items that will help in the fight against Lassic. Eventually, the party engages and defeats Lassic, after which an ethereal voice tells them to return to Motavia. There, they encounter a more evil force, Dark Falz, and after destroying him, finally return peace to the Algol system. 

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Ch. 15 – 蓬生 Yomogiu ("Waste of Weeds"). Scene from the 12th-century illustrated handscroll Genji Monogatari Emaki kept at the Tokugawa Art Museum. Ch. 16 – 関屋 Sekiya ("At The Pass"). Tokugawa Art Museum’s Genji Monogatari Emaki. Ch. 37 – 横笛 Yokobue ("Flute"). Tokugawa Art Museum’s Genji Monogatari Emaki. Ch. 39 – 夕霧 Yūgiri ("Evening Mist"). 12th-century Gotoh Museum handscroll Genji Monogatari Emaki. Ch. 48 – 早蕨 Sawarabi ("Bracken Shoots"). Tokugawa Art Museum’s handscroll Genji Monogatari Emaki. Ch. 49 – 宿り木 Yadorigi ("Ivy"). Tokugawa Art Museum's Genji Monogatari Emaki. The work recounts the life of Hikaru Genji, or "Shining Genji", the son of an ancient Japanese emperor, known to readers as Emperor Kiritsubo, and a low-ranking, but beloved concubine called Kiritsubo Consort. For political reasons, the emperor removes Genji from the line of succession, demoting him to a commoner by giving him the surname Minamoto, and he pursues a career as an imperial officer. The tale concentrates on Genji's romantic life and describes the customs of the aristocratic society of the time. Genji's mother dies when he is three years old, and the Emperor cannot forget her. The Emperor Kiritsubo then hears of a woman (Lady Fujitsubo), formerly a princess of the preceding emperor, who resembles his deceased concubine, and later she becomes one of his wives. Genji loves her first as a stepmother, but later as a woman, and they fall in love with each other. Genji is frustrated by his forbidden love for the Lady Fujitsubo and is on bad terms with his own wife (Aoi no Ue, the Lady Aoi). He engages in a series of love affairs with other women. These are however unfulfilling, as in most cases his advances are rebuffed, or his lover dies suddenly, or he becomes bored. Genji visits Kitayama, a rural hilly area north of Kyoto, where he finds a beautiful ten-year-old girl. He is fascinated by this little girl (Murasaki), and discovers that she is a niece of the Lady Fujitsubo. Finally he kidnaps her, brings her to his own palace and educates her to be like the Lady Fujitsubo, who is his womanly ideal. During this time Genji also meets Lady Fujitsubo secretly, and she bears his son, Reizei. Everyone except the two lovers believes the father of the child is the Emperor Kiritsubo. Later the boy becomes the Crown Prince and Lady Fujitsubo becomes the Empress, but Genji and Lady Fujitsubo swear to keep the child's true parentage secret. Genji and his wife, Lady Aoi, reconcile. She gives birth to a son but dies soon after. Genji is sorrowful but finds consolation in Murasaki, whom he marries. Genji's father, the Emperor Kiritsubo, dies. He is succeeded by his son Suzaku, whose mother (Kokiden), together with Kiritsubo's political enemies, take power in the court. Then another of Genji's secret love affairs is exposed: Genji and a concubine of the Emperor Suzaku are discovered while meeting in secret. The Emperor Suzaku confides his personal amusement at Genji's exploits with the woman (Oborozukiyo), but is duty-bound to punish Genji even though he is his half-brother. He exiles Genji to the town of Suma in rural Harima Province (now part of Kobe in Hyōgo Prefecture). There, a prosperous man known as the Akashi Novice (because he is from Akashi in Settsu Province) entertains Genji, and Genji has an affair with Akashi's daughter. She gives birth to Genji's only daughter, who will later become the Empress. In the capital the Emperor Suzaku is troubled by dreams of his late father, Kiritsubo, and something begins to affect his eyes. Meanwhile, his mother, Kokiden, grows ill, which weakens her influence over the throne, and leads to the Emperor ordering Genji to be pardoned. Genji returns to Kyoto. His son by Lady Fujitsubo, Reizei, becomes the emperor. The new Emperor Reizei knows Genji is his real father, and raises Genji's rank to the highest possible. However, when Genji turns 40 years old, his life begins to decline. His political status does not change, but his love and emotional life begin to incrementally diminish as middle age takes hold. He marries another wife, the Third Princess (known as Onna san no miya in the Seidensticker version, or Nyōsan in Waley's). Genji's nephew, Kashiwagi, later forces himself on the Third Princess, and she bears Kaoru (who, in a similar situation to that of Reizei, is legally known as the son of Genji). Genji's new marriage changes his relationship with Murasaki, who had expressed her wish of becoming a nun (bikuni) though the wish was rejected by Genji. Genji's beloved Murasaki dies. In the following chapter, Maboroshi ("Illusion"), Genji contemplates how fleeting life is. Immediately after the chapter titled Maboroshi, there is a chapter titled Kumogakure ("Vanished into the Clouds"), which is left blank, but implies the death of Genji. Chapter 45–54 are known as the "Uji Chapters". These chapters follow Kaoru and his best friend, Niou. Niou is an imperial prince, the son of Genji's daughter, the current Empress now that Reizei has abdicated the throne, while Kaoru is known to the world as Genji's son but is in fact fathered by Genji's nephew. The chapters involve Kaoru and Niou's rivalry over several daughters of an imperial prince who lives in Uji, a place some distance away from the capital. The tale ends abruptly, with Kaoru wondering if Niou is hiding Kaoru's former lover away from him. Kaoru has sometimes been called the first anti-hero in literature.Seidensticker (1976: xi) 

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William Fitzgerald ("Fitz"), a lieutenant serving in World War II, suddenly gains the mysterious ability to see who is about to die via a strange glow on the person's face. After correctly predicting several deaths, he tells his friend Captain Riker what he is able to see, but the Captain does not know whether to believe him. Riker consults with a doctor, Captain Gunther, who thinks it may be wise to conduct a few tests on the lieutenant. While Riker and Gunther are discussing this, Fitz is in the same hospital visiting one of his men, Smitty, who is supposed to pull through. But he sees the strange light on the soldier's face and knows his fate. After his premonition comes true, Fitz makes a scene in the hospital in front of Captains Gunther and Riker. Back in camp, after Riker lays out plans for the next mission, Fitz reveals that he has seen the light on the captain's face. Though Riker insists it means nothing, that the two of them will share a drink after they return from battle, he nonetheless leaves behind some of his personal possessions - a few photographs and his wedding ring - before he goes into combat. In the camp, the men argue about the rumors of the lieutenant's predictions, but Riker tells all the soldiers there that there are no "mind readers" in the camp. Fitz, seeing the men's faces and realizing he could cause mutiny (and that none of them are fated to die), agrees with the captain. In the ensuing battle, all return except for Riker, who is killed by a sniper. Captain Gunther brings news to Fitz that he is being sent back to division headquarters for some much needed rest, but as the lieutenant gathers his gear, he catches his reflection in a mirror and sees the light on his own face. He then sees the light on the face of the jeep driver who comes to pick him up for the ride to headquarters. After this, Fitz becomes distant, as if resigned to fate. The sergeant sends the two off, telling the driver to be careful as they go; they have not completely checked the area for land mines on the road ahead. As the soldiers are gathered around the camp at dusk, the sound of an explosion is heard in the distance. 

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In the late 22nd century, astronauts Meyers, Webber, and Kirby land their spaceship on a remote asteroid after running low on fuel. They find the place quite Earth-like although "655 million miles away from Earth", but more closely resembling Earth of a past era, although they notice that it has two suns. The first place they come to is a farm where they find a farmer gazing off into the distance. They acknowledge him and try to get his attention, but realize he is nothing more than a statue. The astronauts find a town and they split up to explore it. They are disturbed by their surroundings as they find this town populated by more of the apparently frozen human beings; everything remains eerily motionless. Converging on the center of town, they are startled to find someone who does move: "Jeremy Wickwire", who tells them that he's the caretaker. Amiably, Wickwire explains to the astronauts that the asteroid they have landed on is an exclusive cemetery called "Happy Glades", founded in 1973, where rich people can live out their life's greatest fantasy after they die. He is told by the men that a nuclear war destroyed much of the Earth in 1985, and that it has taken two hundred years to recover from it. Wickwire serves the three men Liebfraumilch, toasts their safe arrival, and asks each man what his greatest wish is. All three reply that they wish they were on their ship heading for home. Suddenly, they realize that their drinks have been poisoned with what Wickwire refers to as "eternifying fluid." As the men are dying, Wickwire (who is actually a robot that has been deactivated for "about 200 years" and only turns on for occasional duties such as cleaning, dusting, and maintenance on a few clocks) apologizes to them, and explains that it is his job to ensure peace and tranquility at "Happy Glades". He emphasizes that they "are men, and while there are men, there can be no peace." Later, Wickwire re-installs the embalmed astronauts in their ship, posing them at their posts as if they were on their way home, just as they had wished. In the final scene, Wickwire is shown entering one of the stately buildings of Happy Glades, presumably shutting down again, probably forever, possibly until additional astronauts unwittingly land at "Happy Glades". 

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Millicent Barnes waits in a bus depot in New York for a bus to Cortland, en route to a new job. Looking at a wall clock she notices the bus is late. She asks the ticket agent when the bus will arrive, and he gruffly complains that this is her third time asking. Millicent denies this. While speaking with him, she notices a bag just like hers on the floor behind the desk. She mentions this and the agent responds that it is her bag. She does not believe this until she notices her bag is not beside the bench anymore. She washes her hands in the restroom and the cleaning lady there insists this is her second time there. Again, Millicent denies this. Upon leaving the restroom, she glances in the mirror and sees, in addition to her reflection, an exact copy of herself sitting on the bench outside. She then meets a young man from Binghamton named Paul Grinstead, who is waiting for the same bus. Paul encourages Millicent to tell him what obviously is bothering her, so she explains about encountering her double. Attempting to calm her, Paul says it is either a joke or a misunderstanding caused by a look-alike. When the bus arrives and the two of them prepare to board, Millicent happens to look up at the windows and sees the copy of herself, already seated on the bus. In shock, she runs back into the depot and faints. Millicent lies unconscious on a bench inside the depot while Paul and the cleaning lady attend to her. Paul decides to wait for the 7:00 a.m. bus. While they wait, Millicent, now coming to, insists the strange events are caused by an evil double from a parallel world - a nearby, yet distant alternative plane of existence that comes into convergence with this world as a result of powerful forces, or unnatural, unknown events. When these events occur, the impostors enter this realm. Millicent's doppelgänger can survive in this world only by eliminating and replacing her. Paul says the explanation is "a little metaphysical" for him, and believes that Millicent's sanity is beginning to unravel. Paul tells Millicent he will call a friend in Tully who has a car and may be able to drive them to Syracuse. Instead, he calls the police. After Millicent is taken away by two policemen, Paul begins to settle himself. After drinking from a water fountain, Paul notices that his valise is missing. Looking up towards the doors, Paul notices another man running out the door of the bus depot. Pursuing this individual down the street, Paul discovers that he is chasing his own copy, whose face shows excited delight. His copy disappears as Paul calls out "Where are you?" while looking around in confusion and shock. 

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Maple Street is full of children playing and adults talking when a shadow passes over, accompanied by a roar and a flash of light. Everyone notices, but they assume that it is a meteor and quickly resume their activities. The residents soon discover that their power went off, affecting stoves, lawn mowers, cars and phones. They gather in the street to discuss the situation. Pete Van Horn, hammer slung in his bib overalls, volunteers to walk over to Floral Street, the next street over, to see if it is affected as well. His neighbors, Steve Brand and Charlie Farnsworth, decide to go into town, but Tommy, an over-imaginative neighborhood boy, urges them not to go. Tommy has read a story of an alien invasion causing similar issues, and says that the monsters do not want anyone to leave the street. Tommy adds that in the story, the aliens are living as a family that appears to be human but who are actually scouts, and the power outage that they cause is meant to isolate the neighborhood. The adults are incredulous, assuring him that the cause is natural, perhaps the result of sunspots. Charlie wonders if Pete Van Horn was successful in making it to Floral Street. Another resident, Les Goodman, tries unsuccessfully to start his car. As he is walking over to join the other residents, the car starts by itself. This, coupled with the fact that, when the situation began, Les did not join in the general speculation, makes the neighbors suspect that Les may be an alien, as suggested by Tommy's story. Charlie says Les had always been an oddball, and suggests they go over and investigate, while Steve asks them to be calm and not act like a mob. As they all gather, conversation turns sinister. One woman brings up Les's late nights spent standing in the garden looking up at the sky, as if waiting or looking for something. Les, defending himself as a resident of Maple Street for five years, claims to suffer from insomnia, admonishes his neighbors that they should take caution and not act rashly or allow panic. Steve tries to defuse the situation and prevent it from becoming a witch-hunt. As darkness descends, Charlie begins keeping watch over Les Goodman's house. Steve suggests Charlie go home and go to bed. Another neighbor, Don, mentions that Steve has built a ham radio, which Charlie then claims no one has ever seen, the implication being that Steve is secretly talking to aliens. Steve and the other neighbors continue to argue, using each person's idiosyncrasies as evidence that they are an alien. Steve warns that such behavior, looking for a scapegoat, is the surest way for the entire neighborhood to "eat each other alive". A shadowy figure carrying a hammer is seen walking toward them. Tommy exclaims that it is the monster. Claiming it may be necessary for protection, Don obtains a shotgun which Steve quickly confiscates, insisting that no one is shooting anybody. As the figure gets closer, Charlie panics, grabs the shotgun, and shoots the figure, thinking it is an alien. When the crowd reaches the fallen figure, they realize it is Pete van Horn, returning from his scouting mission on Floral Street, and he is now dead. As Charlie struggles to defend his hasty action, the lights in his house come on. Les and Don voice suspicions that Pete had discovered evidence that Charlie is an alien, and he shot Pete to prevent exposure, and even Steve is too angered by Pete's death to defend Charlie. Charlie makes a run for his house; everyone chases him, throwing stones, one of which smashes a window, causing broken glass to fly at Charlie's face, cutting his forehead. Terrified, Charlie attempts to deflect suspicion onto Tommy. While his mother is quick to defend him, several neighbors agree with this idea, as Tommy was the only one who knew about the aliens' plans. Steve continues to try to defuse the situation, but no one listens. Lights begin flashing on and off in houses throughout the neighborhood; lawn mower and car engines start and stop for no apparent reason. The mob becomes hysterical, hurling accusations, smashing windows and taking up weapons as the situation devolves into an all- out riot. The scene cuts to a nearby hilltop, where it is revealed the shadow that flew overhead is, indeed, an alien spaceship. Its crew are watching the riot on Maple Street while using a device to manipulate the neighborhood's power. They comment on how simply fiddling with consistency leads people to descend into paranoia and panic, and that this is a pattern that can be exploited. They also discuss their intention to use this strategy to conquer Earth, one neighborhood at a time. They then ascend a stairway into their spaceship. 

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Arthur Curtis is a successful businessman planning a vacation to San Francisco with his loving wife Marian. After arriving at his office and talking with his secretary Sally, he finds that his telephone is not functional and, hearing someone yell "cut", he discovers his office is a movie set on a sound stage. He is told that Arthur Curtis is merely a character he is playing, and that his real identity is Gerald Raigan, a movie star who is caught in the middle of a brutal divorce from hostile Nora, his own alcoholism and a declining career. Apparently his mental health has been deteriorating for some time and the studio is fed up with him, thinking that he is simply faking mental illness to avoid his responsibilities. The director warns Raigan/Curtis that he will likely be fired if he leaves but, disoriented, he ignores this information and departs the studio to go home. Outside, he is nearly hit by a car driven by Nora, who helps him up and begins demanding the money awarded her from their divorce settlement, though Raigan/Curtis insists he doesn't know who Nora is. They leave together in the car. He tries in vain to locate Arthur Curtis's house, and mistakes a little girl for his daughter, causing her to flee in terror. Nora drives him to their actual home. Inside, he meets his (Raigan's) agent, who tells him that if he fails to continue work that day, he will drop him as a client. Curtis still protests that he is not Raigan, and tries to call his workplace, but the operator cannot find any listing of it. His agent believes that he is having a nervous breakdown, and shows him the shooting script of a movie called The Private World of Arthur Curtis. He then tells him that the movie is being canceled due to his current outburst and his ongoing issues. Raigan/Curtis rushes back to the set, which is being dismantled, and pleads not to be left in the uncaring world of Gerald Raigan. His office reappears as it was before, just as Marian arrives. Sally gives him his plane tickets. As Raigan/Curtis hears echoes of the workers dismantling the studio, he embraces Marian and desperately tells her that he never wants to lose her, and that they should leave for their vacation immediately. They then quickly exit his office and head to the airport. Meanwhile, in the other world, Raigan's agent shows up on the set to find that Raigan has vanished. Some of the crew saw him return to the set but no one saw him leave. Perplexed, the agent wonders where Raigan might have gone. As the set is taken apart, a teaser shows the "Arthur Curtis" script amidst clutter on a desk, waiting to be thrown away. In the last scene, an airplane is seen, having just taken off, hinting that Curtis/Raigan escaped into the world he wanted. 

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Walter Jameson, a college professor, is engaged to a young doctoral student named Susanna Kittridge. Susanna's father, Sam Kittridge, another professor at Jameson's college, becomes suspicious of Jameson because he does not appear to have aged in the twelve years they have known each other and seems to have unrealistically detailed knowledge of some pieces of history that do not appear in texts. Jameson at one point reads from an original Civil War diary in his possession. Later, Kittridge recognizes Jameson in a Mathew Brady Civil War photograph. After he presents these pieces of evidence, Jameson ultimately reveals his real life history. Agelessness (but no immunity to injury) was imparted to him by an alchemist more than 2,000 years ago. Jameson does not know what was done to him, only that the alchemist was gone when he recovered, and he then stopped aging. Soon, he had to become a constant refugee. He tells Kittridge that he learned a terrible lesson from living for so long and longs for death. He keeps a revolver in his desk drawer, but does not have the courage to use it. Realizing that if Jameson marries his daughter, she will grow old, and Jameson will eventually abandon her in order to keep his secret, Kittridge refuses permission for Jameson to marry his daughter. Jameson defies him and proposes to Susanna, and they plan to immediately elope. Jameson is accosted by Laurette Bowen (Estelle Winwood), one of his wives, whom he abandoned when she grew old and frail. She claims that she cannot allow Jameson to destroy another woman's life. She discovers Jameson's pistol lying on his desk and shoots him. Shortly after Bowen leaves, Kittridge enters Jameson's study and finds him bleeding, but seemingly at peace. Jameson rapidly ages and collapses on the floor. Susanna enters the house. Kittridge tries to stop her from seeing the aged Jameson, saying only that he is gone. He is unable to keep her out of the room, but inside she discovers only an empty suit of clothes with a white substance near the collar and sleeves. When Susanna asks what is on the floor, the professor replies, "Dust, only dust." 

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The film is the story of a hopeful new Hungarian immigrant Janos Szabo (Peter Lorre), who, on his first day in New York City, is trapped in a hotel fire that leaves his face hideously scarred. Refused employment due to his appearance, although he possesses tremendous skill as a watchmaker, the only way he can survive is by turning to theft, using his skilled hands to disable alarms. Eventually he becomes the leader of a gang of thieves and raises money to commission and wear a realistic latex mask of his own face. Janos then falls in love with Helen (Evelyn Keyes) a blind woman who sees only the good in him, and attempts to leave his life of crime behind him. Unfortunately, his gang come to believe that he has betrayed them to the police, and attempt to kill him by car bomb, an attempt on his life that he survives but which kills Helen. In retaliation, Janos disguises himself as the pilot of the private plane the gang is flying out of the city with, which he lands in the Arizona desert and lets out the fuel, suicidally stranding both the gang and himself without food or water, dooming them all to a slow death. At the film's end, Janos's body and that of his enemies are discovered by the police. 

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In 1920, two youths, Rocky Sullivan (Frankie Burke) and Jerry Connolly (William Tracy), attempt to rob a railroad car carrying fountain pens. Jerry escapes from the police, while Rocky is caught and sentenced to reform school. Fifteen years later, an older Rocky (James Cagney) is arrested for armed robbery. His lawyer and co-conspirator, Jim Frazier (Humphrey Bogart), asks him to take the blame and, in exchange, he will give Rocky the stolen $100,000 on the day he is released. Rocky agrees and is sentenced to three years in prison. After serving his sentence, Rocky returns to his old neighborhood and visits Jerry (Pat O'Brien), who is now a Catholic priest. Jerry advises Rocky to get a place "in the old parish", so Rocky rents a room in a boarding house run by Laury Martin (Ann Sheridan), a girl he bullied in school. He then pays a visit to Frazier's casino. Frazier claims to have been unaware of Rocky's release, but he promises to have the $100,000 ready by the end of the week, and he gives Rocky $500 spending money. After leaving Frazier's casino, Rocky has his pocket picked by a gang of young toughs: Soapy (Billy Halop), Swing (Bobby Jordan), Bim (Leo Gorcey), Pasty (Gabriel Dell), Crab (Huntz Hall), and Hunky (Bernard Punsly). After Rocky tracks them down (they are in his old childhood hideout) and proves to them he is no sucker, the tough kids admit to an admiration of Rocky's reputation and criminal lifestyle. After retrieving his wallet and all the money therein, Rocky invites them to dinner. While they are eating, Jerry arrives and asks the gang why they have not been playing basketball. With Rocky's help, he convinces them to play against another team. At the match, Jerry and Laury express equal concern over the negative influence Rocky may be having on the gang. While walking home, Frazier's hit squad makes an attempt on Rocky's life. He survives and retaliates by kidnapping Frazier, raiding his house at gunpoint and stealing $2,000 and a ledger. Frazier's business partner, Mac Keefer (George Bancroft), gives Rocky his $100,000 in full, but Mac informs the police of the kidnapping. Rocky is arrested, but after discovering he has possession of the ledger, Frazier tells the police it was all a "misunderstanding", and Rocky is released. Jerry learns of the kidnapping, and decides to go to the press to expose corruption in New York. Rocky tries unsuccessfully to reason with him. On the radio, Jerry denounces the corruption, as well as Rocky, Frazier and Keefer. Frazier and Keefer assure Rocky that no harm will come to Jerry, but he overhears their plans to kill them both. Rocky kills Frazier and Keefer instead and, after escaping the casino, makes his way to an abandoned warehouse where he kills a police officer. A standoff ensues with other police. Jerry arrives and tries to reason with Rocky, telling him the entire building is surrounded, but Rocky takes Jerry hostage. While trying to escape, Rocky is shot in the leg and caught. After standing trial, he is sentenced to death. Despite Rocky's stated plans to die proud and 'spitting in their eyes,' Jerry pleads with Rocky to die cowardly, begging for mercy on his way to the death house, citing the negative influence Rocky has had on Soapy and the gang as his reason. Rocky refuses, but after being parted from Father Connolly, Rocky starts begging and screaming for mercy as he's forced to sit in the electric chair, requiring the guards to subdue him and seemingly dying a coward's death. Later, Soapy and the gang read in the newspapers of how Rocky "turned yellow" in the face of his execution, and they refuse to believe it. Jerry comes in and Soapy asks if it is true that Rocky had died a coward, and Jerry confirms that it is true. The gang no longer knows what to think about Rocky, or the criminal lifestyle, and Jerry then asks them to accompany him to go say a prayer for "a boy who couldn't run as fast as I could". 

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Babes in Arms opens in Seaport, Rhode Island in the 1930s. Val and Marshall's vaudeville parents leave them behind to do the circuits. Val then meets Billie, a girl who has driven from the coast, only to have her car break down. They then sing a love song about how they feel as though they have met before (Where or When). The Sheriff then visits them to inform them that they have to work at the work farm because they are not yet 21. They then decide that they will stick around instead and find another way to support themselves (Babes in Arms). The “kids” form a group with Val as the leader. After deciding nothing, except that violence is good, they disperse. Dolores, the Sheriff's daughter, talks to Gus, her ex, who tries to woo her, failing. They then sing and flirt about how they do not care that their relationship is over (I Wish I Were in Love Again). Marshall then arrives, jealous. Then Val enters mentioning that he has also kissed her, a fight begins and escalates when others enter. The sheriff comes in and the kids pretend to be dancing. This causes Val to decide to put on their own follies. The Sheriff decides to give them two weeks to put on the show (Babes in Arms Reprise). Later, Val enters and tells Irving and Ivor to practice their number (Light on Our Feet). Lee then arrives and chastises his brother, Beauregard, for hanging out with “the blacks”. Billie then uses her womanly guiles to convince Lee to invest his money in the show. Lee then smears some of her lipstick on his cheek and convinces the boys that she kissed him. They then bring on “Baby Rose” a former child star to be in their show who performs a number she learned (Way Out West). Billie then enters with a jealous Val. After calming him, they discuss the show. Lee does not want Irving and Ivor in the show, After learning this, Val leaves in a huff. Billie reflects on her romance with Val (My Funny Valentine). They transition into the day of the show and show the final number of the follies performed by Baby Rose (Johnny One Note). Backstage, Lee and Val fight over letting Irving and Ivor go on despite their race. Val punches Lee and Irving and Ivan go and do the big dance finale (Johnny One Note Ballet). Act 2 opens on the gang sitting despondently trying to cheer each other up because they are at the work farm (Imagine). Val comes in and calls them away to lunch, staying behind to inform Billie that his parents will be away for 3-4 more months. They talk and Val mocks Billie's beliefs on luck and her immaturity (All at Once). For the gang's first night off, the sheriff is throwing a party in a field on Val's property. The former communist Peter enters, having won money in a raffle, and proclaims that he is to travel the world and not share his money to which the gang is upset (Imagine Reprise). Cut to a surprisingly long ballet dream sequence of his travels (Peter's Ballet). Continuing pre ballet he decides to invest the money (Imagine Reprise 2). Later at the party, the Sheriff attempts to make good with the kids. Billie tells Val that she plans on leaving The Farm for the road. Val insists on going with her before being called back to the kitchen. Billie sings about how she doesn't mind driving around. She also talks about how she likes living on her own terms (Lady is a Tramp). Peter returns to the party informing the crew that he lost all the money. The gang leaves following the radio for news of a cross atlantic flight and Deloris tells Gus that she will come work on the farm to be with him. He reacts by telling her how she doesn't return his affections and drags him along (You are so Fair). After pretending to not care about each other they admit that they like each other. The gang re-enters and listen to the radio. They realise the Aviator must make a forced landing, and in their field nonetheless! After much scrambling, they call the airport to get reporters to come, and Val decides to impersonate the aviator. The reporters believe his impersonation and the city decides to throw the aviator a party. After concocting a scheme, Billie takes control of the unconscious and tied up aviator and relishes in the fact that the gang treats her as an equal (Lady is a Tramp Reprise). At the party, the gang repeatedly interrupts the mayor introducing the aviator to delay it. Performing a variety of musical numbers (Specialty: You are so fair, Imagine, My Funny Valentine, Light on Our Feet, and Lady is a Tramp). After The Aviator successfully does the speech the entire chorus performs a rousing closing number (Finale Ultimo). 

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The novel opens in April 1800. Jack Aubrey, a shipless lieutenant wasting away in the Royal Navy port of Mahon in Minorca, meets Stephen Maturin, a destitute Irish-Catalan physician and natural philosopher, at a concert at the Governor's Mansion. During the performance, Maturin elbows Aubrey who is beating the measure "half a beat ahead". The men, both at personal low points, treat the matter as one of honour; they exchange names and anticipate a duel. Later that evening, Aubrey learns that he has been promoted to the rank of commander and has been given command of the 14-gun HM Sloop Sophie. Meeting Maturin in the street the next day, Aubrey's joy overcomes his animosity and he invites Maturin to dine. The men discover a shared love of music, Aubrey playing the violin and Maturin the cello. On learning Maturin's profession, Aubrey asks him to join his ship. Although as a physician Maturin's expertise goes far beyond that normally expected of a naval surgeon, he agrees. Sophie is sent to accompany a small convoy of merchant ships in the Mediterranean. Aubrey takes the opportunity to get to know his sailors and work them into a fighting unit with the aid of his new first lieutenant, James Dillon, a wealthy and aristocratic Irishman. Dillon and Maturin had met earlier (a fact they keep to themselves) as members of the United Irishmen, a society dedicated to Irish home rule and Catholic emancipation. Dillon suffers a crisis of conscience when ordered to intercept an American ship thought to be harbouring Irish rebels, and he works to help them avoid capture. Maturin, who has never been aboard a man-of-war, struggles to understand nautical customs, and O'Brian has the crew explain to him (and to the reader) naval terminology and the official practice whereby prize money can be awarded for captured enemy vessels. Maturin is treated by the crew as a landsman, though without offence. As a natural philosopher he relishes the opportunity to study rare birds and fish. His convoy duties complete, Aubrey is permitted by Admiral Keith to cruise the Mediterranean independently, looking for enemy French merchants, at which he succeeds. Sophie meets and defeats the much larger and better-armed Cacafuego, a Spanish 32 gun xebec- frigate, though losing a number of crew, including Dillon, in the bloody action. A victory against such odds would normally bring official recognition, promotion, and significant prize money, but unfortunately for Aubrey his superior at Mahon is Captain Harte, with whose wife Aubrey has been having an affair. Harte ensures that Aubrey receives none of those things, though he cannot prevent Aubrey gaining a reputation within the Royal Navy as one of its great, young fighting captains. On escort duty, Sophie is captured by a squadron of four large French warships. The French Captain Christy Pallière is courteous; he tells Aubrey of his cousins in Bath, and feeds him well. Aubrey and his crew miss the Algeciras Campaign but are able to observe the fighting from Gibraltar, having been paroled by the French. Aubrey faces a court- martial for the loss of his ship, and is acquitted. 

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Abe Lincoln (Raymond Massey) leaves home for the first time, having been hired along with two of his friends by Denton Offutt (Harlan Briggs) to take a load of pigs by water to New Orleans. When the boat gets stuck at a dam at the settlement of New Salem, Abe sees and loses his heart to Ann Rutledge (Mary Howard), the beautiful daughter of the local tavern keeper. When Denton later offers him a job at the store he has decided to set up in New Salem, Abe readily accepts. Abe discovers, however, that Ann already has a beau. Nonetheless, he settles in, making himself the most popular man around with his ready, good-natured humor, and taking lessons from schoolteacher Mentor Graham (Louis Jean Heydt). When his rival for Ann's affections leaves to better himself, Ann waits for him two years before receiving a letter from him in which he states he does not know when he will return. Abe seizes the opportunity to express his love for her; she is unsure of her feelings for him and asks for a little time. She soon dies from "brain fever", telling Abe on her deathbed that she could have loved him. Abe is asked to run for the State Assembly. He reluctantly accepts and wins, but after his first term in Springfield, Illinois, he decides to study the law instead. When Mary Todd (Ruth Gordon) visits her sister Elizabeth Edwards (Dorothy Tree) and her wealthy, influential husband Ninian (Harvey Stephens), a party is held in her honor. All the eligible bachelors show up, including Abe's fiercest political rival, Stephen Douglas (Gene Lockhart). However, it is the homely, unpolished Abe who catches Mary's fancy, much to her sister's chagrin. Ambitious, Mary senses greatness in him and is determined to drive him to his rightful destiny, despite his lack of ambition. Abe does ask her to marry him, but changes his mind at the last minute, discomfited by her drive, and leaves town. After thinking things over, however, he asks for her hand again. She accepts. Years pass, and they have several children. With a presidential election looming, Abe's party is so split that the favorites are unacceptable to all. The party leaders compromise on "dark horse" Abe Lincoln. He engages in a series of debates with Stephen Douglas, the opposing candidate. A main issue is slavery. In a stirring speech, Abe contends that "a house divided against itself cannot stand". He wins the election. As the film ends, Abe bids his friends goodbye and boards the train to go to Washington, DC. 

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The film charts the meeting, courtship, and marriage of Julie Gardiner (Irene Dunne) and Roger Adams (Cary Grant) through the playing of popular songs relevant to each time period. After their spur-of-the-moment marriage on New Years' Eve and a night in Roger's train compartment en route to San Francisco, Julie rejoins Roger in Tokyo where he has a stint as a reporter. Julie loses their unborn child in the 1923 Tokyo earthquake and returns to California despondent, until their friend Applejack Carney (Edgar Buchanan) encourages them to adopt a child. While Roger struggles to keep a newspaper going in the fictional California town of Rosalia, Julie keeps house and outfits the nursery. They apply at an adoption agency for a two-year-old boy, and receive a call from Mrs. Oliver (Beulah Bondi) that a five-week-old baby girl is available. Though Roger would have preferred a boy, he falls in love with the baby and he and Julie do their best to care for her during their one-year probation period. At the end of that time, Roger has lost the newspaper and the law will not allow him to adopt the baby without an income. Roger appears before the judge and delivers an impassioned plea to keep the girl, whom he considers like his own. The judge awards custody and Roger returns home with their daughter. Years later, Roger and Julie swell with pride as their daughter, not yet old enough to play an angel in the Christmas play, plays the "echo" instead. The following Christmas, Julie writes to Mrs. Oliver to tell her that Trina has succumbed to a sudden illness. The child's death sends Roger into a depression, and Julie resolves to leave him, believing he does not need her anymore. Just as she is about to leave for the train station, the couple receives a phone call from Mrs. Oliver, saying that a two-year-old boy has just become available for adoption. Roger and Julie embrace, ready to rebuild their marriage with a new child. 

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Daniel argues while the devil whispers in the judge's ear. Farmer Jabez Stone, from the small town of Cross Corners, New Hampshire, is plagued with unending bad luck, causing him to finally swear "it's enough to make a man want to sell his soul to the devil!" Stone is visited the next day by a stranger, who later identifies himself as "Mr. Scratch", and makes such an offer in exchange for seven years of prosperity. Stone agrees. After seven years, Mr. Scratch comes for Stone's soul. Stone bargains for an additional three years; after the additional three years pass, Mr. Scratch refuses any further extension. Wanting out of the deal, Stone convinces famous lawyer and orator Daniel Webster to accept his case. At midnight of the appointed date, Mr. Scratch arrives and is greeted by Webster, presenting himself as Stone's attorney. Mr. Scratch tells Webster, "I shall call upon you, as a law-abiding citizen, to assist me in taking possession of my property," and so begins the argument. It goes poorly for Webster, since the signature and the contract are clear and Mr. Scratch will not compromise. In desperation Webster thunders, "Mr. Stone is an American citizen, and no American citizen may be forced into the service of a foreign prince. We fought England for that in '12 and we'll fight all hell for it again!" To this Mr. Scratch insists on his citizenship, citing his presence at the worst events in the history of the U.S., concluding, "though I don't like to boast of it, my name is older in this country than yours." Webster demands a trial as the right of every American. Mr. Scratch agrees after Webster says that he can select the judge and jury, "so long as it is an American judge and an American jury." A jury of the damned then enters, "with the fires of hell still upon them." They had all done evil, and had all played a part in the formation of the United States: *Walter Butler, a Loyalist *Simon Girty, a Loyalist *King Philip (sachem (elected chief) of the Wampanoag people) *Governor Thomas Dale *Thomas Morton, a rival of the Plymouth Pilgrims *The pirate Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard *Reverend John Smeet (a purely fictional character)Anderson, Charles R. Puzzles and Essays from "The Exchange" - Trick Reference Questions, p. 122: "In 'The Devil and Daniel Webster' by Stephen Vincent Benét, there is a character named the Reverend John Smeet. Was this a real person? : Mrs. Stephen Vincent Benét (1960), in a letter to the New York Times Book Review, claimed that the good reverend was entirely imaginary. Mrs. Benét explained that her husband occasionally used to insert imaginary people into his writings. Benét even quoted from a made-up person named John Cleveland Cotton. He went so far as to write an apocryphal biographical note about Cotton that found its way into Marion King's Books and People (King, 1954). In this Benét anticipated authors Tim Powers and James Blaylock, who created a poet named William Ashbless." After five other unnamed jurors enter (Benedict Arnold being out "on other business"), the judge enters last - John Hathorne, the infamous and unrepentant executor of the Salem witch trials. The trial is rigged against Webster. He is ready to rage, without care for himself or Stone, but he catches himself: he sees in the jurors' eyes that they want him to act thus. He calms himself, "for it was him they'd come for, not only Jabez Stone." Webster starts to orate on simple and good things – "the freshness of a fine morning...the taste of food when you're hungry...the new day that's every day when you're a child" – and how "without freedom, they sickened." He speaks passionately of how wonderful it is to be human and to be an American. He admits the wrongs done in the course of American history but points out that something new and good had grown from them and that "everybody had played a part in it, even the traitors." Humankind "got tricked and trapped and bamboozled, but it was a great journey," something "no demon that was ever foaled" could ever understand. The jury announces its verdict: "We find for the defendant, Jabez Stone." They admit, "Perhaps 'tis not strictly in accordance with the evidence,A point sometimes not known or appreciated by the reader is that, by agreeing to a jury trial under common law, Mr. Scratch has also agreed to be bound by the rule that a jury is the exclusive judge of both the facts and the law; as such, even in the face of overwhelming evidence favoring the plaintiff (such as the contract Mr. Scratch had with Stone) the jury could find for the defendant, acting as a sort of local law-making body with the power to suspend the law in this case (this can only be done for acquittals; convictions must be done strictly according to the law and the evidence). Webster, as an experienced lawyer, would know that; presumably Mr. Scratch would have known that as well, but was confident that his hand-picked jury would do his bidding. but even the damned may salute the eloquence of Mr. Webster." The judge and jury disappear with the break of dawn. Mr. Scratch congratulates Webster, and the contract is torn up. The devil has overreached himself, agreeing to a jury trial out of pride in his unbreakable contract. But by doing so, he has put his contract within the reach of the Common Law used in America, under which a jury can enter whatever verdict it likes, regardless of the law. Webster's eloquence in swaying this supposedly unswayable jury is remarkable, but would have gone to no effect without the devil's pride-induced mistake in giving Webster a chance. Webster then grabs the stranger and twists his arm behind his back, "for he knew that once you bested anybody like Mr. Scratch in fair fight, his power on you was gone." Webster makes him agree "never to bother Jabez Stone nor his heirs or assigns nor any other New Hampshire man till doomsday!" Mr. Scratch offers to tell Webster's fortune in his palm. He foretells (actual) events in Webster's future, including his failure to become President (an actual ambition of his), the death of Webster's sons (which happened in the American Civil War) and the backlash of his last speech, warning "Some will call you Ichabod" (as in John Greenleaf Whittier's poem in reaction to Webster's controversial Seventh of March speech supporting the Compromise of 1850 that incorporated the Fugitive Slave Act, with many in the North calling Webster a traitor). Webster takes the predictions in stride and asks only if the Union will prevail. Scratch reluctantly admits that, although a war will be fought over the issue, the United States will remain united. Webster then laughs, "... and with that he drew back his foot for a kick that would have stunned a horse. It was only the tip of his shoe that caught the stranger, but he went flying out of the door with his collecting box under his arm ... And he hasn't been seen in the state of New Hampshire from that day to this. I'm not talking about Massachusetts or Vermont." 

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See also: Gospel of Matthew In Galilee during the Roman Empire, Jesus of Nazareth travels around the country with his disciples, healing the blind, raising the dead, exorcising demons and proclaiming the arrival of the Kingdom of God and the salvation of Israel. He claims to be the Son of God and so, therefore, the prophesied Messiah of Israel, which brings him into direct confrontation with the Jewish temple leaders. He is arrested, handed over to the Romans and charged with sedition against the Roman state, of which he is declared innocent by the Roman governor of Judea, but is, nevertheless, crucified at the behest of the Temple leaders. He rises from the dead after three days. 

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Ethel Barrymore and Cary Grant in the film Ernie Mott is a restless, irresponsible, wandering Cockney with a good musical ear. On Armistice Day, Ernie visits the tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey, which memorializes those who died in World War I, including his father. Ernie wants a better life but does not want to settle down or work for it. When he returns home, his mother Ma asks why he has returned after so long, and she gives him an ultimatum that he must stay home now or leave forever. He informs her that he will then be leaving next morning, and goes out to get a drink. He meets fellow musician Aggie Hunter outside the bar, but instead prefers the company of a gangster's fickle former wife, Ada Brantline. However, when Ernie becomes smitten with Ada she rejects his offer of a date when he tells her he will be leaving town the next day. The next morning, Ma tells her pawnbroker friend, Ike Weber, that she has cancer. Ma and Ernie get into another fight, but after he storms out, Ike shares with him that his mother needs him in her battle with cancer. Ernie returns and says that he will stay with her at home and help her run her shop. A month passes, and Ernie continues to pursue Ada. However, when gangster Jim Mordinoy informs him that she is still his wife, Ernie does not believe Ada when she says that is a lie and he cuts her off socially. Ernie begins to notice the poverty surrounding him in London, and chooses to accept Mordinoy's offer to join his activities, even against Ada's pleas. Ernie begins to steal cars, and he is involved in a police chase until his car collides with a truck and explodes into flames. Ada implores him to run away with her, but he does not want to leave his dying mother. When Ernie is eventually bailed out of jail by Ike, he finds out that after the police discovered Ernie's platinum cigarette case — his birthday gift from Ma — was stolen, the police arrested Ma and put her in prison. She begs for forgiveness for shaming the family, and dies in prison hospital. When he returns home, he learns via a letter from Ada that she decided to stay with Mordinoy because that would make her life easier. Ernie is crushed, and walks along the street until he gets to Aggie's door and walks in. 

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A despot falls for a dancing girl. After she rejects him, she has her other beau framed for murder. 

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Redmond Barry of Bally Barry, born to a genteel but ruined Irish family, fancies himself a gentleman. At the prompting of his mother, he learns what he can of courtly manners and swordplay, but fails at more scholarly subjects like Latin. He is a hot-tempered, passionate lad, and falls madly in love with his cousin, Nora. As she is a spinster a few years older than Redmond, she is seeking a prospect with more ready cash to pay family debts. The lad tries to engage in a duel with Nora's suitor, an English officer named John Quin. He is made to think that he has assassinated the man, though his pistol was actually loaded with tow, a dummy load of heavy, knotted fibres. Quin, struck with the harmless load, fainted in fright. Redmond flees to Dublin, where he quickly falls in with bad company in the way of con artists, and soon loses all his money. Pursued by creditors, he enlists as a common private in a British Army infantry regiment headed for service in Germany during the Seven Years' War. Once in Germany, despite a promotion to corporal, he hates the army and seeks to desert. When his lieutenant is wounded, Redmond helps take him to a German village for treatment. The Irishman pretends to suffer from insanity, and after several days absconds with the lieutenant's uniform, papers, and money. As part of his ruse, he convinces the locals that he is the real Lieutenant Fakenham, and the wounded man is the mad Corporal Barry. Redmond Barry rides off toward a neutral German territory, hoping for better fortune. His bad luck continues, though, as he is joined on the road by a Prussian officer. The German soon realises that Redmond is a deserter, but rather than turn him over to the British to be hanged, impresses him into the Prussian army (for a bounty). Redmond hates Prussian service as much or more than he hated British service, but the men are carefully watched to prevent desertion. Redmond marches with Frederick's army into the Battle of Kunersdorf, barely surviving the disastrous cavalry charge that decimates the Prussian army. He becomes the servant of Captain Potzdorff, and is involved in the intrigues of that gentleman. After several months have passed, a stranger travelling under Austrian protection arrives in Berlin. Redmond is asked to spy on the stranger, an older man called Chevalier de Balibari (sic. Ballybary). He immediately realises that this is his uncle, the adventurer who disappeared many years ago. The uncle arranges to smuggle his nephew out of Prussia, and this is soon done. The two Irishmen and an accomplice wander around Europe, gambling and generally living it up. Eventually, the Barrys end up in a Rhineland Duchy, where they win considerable sums of money, and Redmond cleverly sets up a plan to marry a young countess of some means. Again, fortune turns against him, and a series of circumstances undermines his complex plan. Both uncle and nephew are forced to leave Germany—both unmarried. While cooling their heels in France, Redmond comes into the acquaintance of the Countess of Lyndon, an extraordinarily wealthy noblewoman married to a much older man in poor health. He has some success in seducing the lady, but her husband clings to life. Eventually, she goes back to England. Redmond is upset, but bides his time. Upon hearing the following year that the husband has died, he strikes. Through a series of adventures, Redmond eventually bullies and seduces the Countess of Lyndon, who marries him under duress. After the wedding, he moves into Hackton Castle, which he has completely remodelled at great expense. Redmond admits several times in the course of his narrative that he has no control over a budget, and spends his new bride's birthright money freely. He looks after a few childhood benefactors in Ireland, his cousin Ulick (who had often stood up for him as a boy), and makes himself over into the most fashionable man in the district. As the American War of Independence breaks out, Barry Lyndon (as he now calls himself) raises a company of soldiers to be sent to America. He also defeats his wife's cousins to win a seat in Parliament. His good fortunes, though, ebb again. His stepson, Lord Bullingdon, goes off to the American war—and Barry is accused of trying to get the lad killed in battle. Then his own child—Bryan—dies in a tragic horse-riding accident. Combined with Barry's own profligate spending practices, he is ruined on many levels. As the "memoir" ends, (Redmond) Barry Lyndon is separated from his wife and lodged in Fleet Prison. A small stipend allows him to live in moderate luxury, and his elderly mother lodges close by to tend to him. He spends the last nineteen years of his life in prison, dying of alcoholism-related illness. 

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Amid Japan's invasion of China during World War II, Jamie Graham, a British upper middle class schoolboy, enjoys a privileged life in the Shanghai International Settlement. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan begin occupying the settlement. As the Graham family evacuate the city, Jamie becomes separated from his parents in the ensuing chaos. Jamie returns to their house hoping they will return. After a length of time alone and eating all the food, he ventures into the city. Hungry, Jamie tries surrendering to Japanese soldiers who ignore him. After being chased by a street urchin, he is taken in by two American expatriates and hustlers, Basie and Frank. Unable to sell Jamie for money, Basie and Frank intend to abandon him in the streets, but Jamie offers to lead them to his neighborhood to loot the empty houses there. Jamie sees his house lit and thinks his family has returned, only to discover the house occupied by Japanese troops. The trio are then taken prisoner, taken to the Lunghua Civilian Assembly Centre in Shanghai for processing, and are sent to the internment camp in Suzhou. It is now 1945, nearing the end of the Pacific War. Despite the terror and poor living conditions of the camp, Jim survives by establishing a successful trading network—which even involves the camp's commander, Sergeant Nagata. Dr Rawlins, the camp's British doctor, becomes a father figure and teacher to Jim. Jim also visits Basie in the American POW barracks, where Jim idolises the Americans and their culture. One night after a bombing raid, Nagata orders the destruction of the prisoners' infirmary as reprisal. He only stops when Jim (now fluent in Japanese) begs forgiveness. Through the barbed wire fencing, Jim befriends a Japanese teenager who is a trainee pilot. One morning at dawn, Jim witnesses a kamikaze ritual. Overcome with emotion, he salutes and sings the Welsh song "Suo Gân". The base is suddenly attacked by a group of American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft. Jim is overjoyed and climbs the ruins of a nearby pagoda to better watch the airstrike. Dr Rawlins chases Jim up the pagoda to save him, where the boy breaks down in tears—he cannot remember what his parents look like. As a result of the attack the Japanese decide to evacuate the camp. Basie escapes during the confusion, though he had promised to take Jim with him. As they leave, the trainee pilot Jim befriended attempts to take off in a Japanese attack plane, but is devastated when it doesn't start. The camp's prisoners march through the wilderness where many die of fatigue, starvation, and disease. Arriving at a football stadium near Nantao, where many of the Shanghai inhabitants' possessions have been stored by the Japanese, Jim recognises his parents' Packard. Jim spends the night there and witnesses flashes from the atomic bombing of Nagasaki hundreds of miles away. Jim wanders back to the Suzhou camp. Along the way he hears news of Japan's surrender and the end of the war. He encounters the Japanese teenager he befriended earlier, who has since become a pilot but is now disillusioned. The youth remembers Jim and offers him a mango, and will cut it for him with his sword. Basie reappears with a group of armed Americans who have arrived to loot the Red Cross containers being airdropped over the area. One of the Americans, thinking Jim is in danger, shoots and kills the Japanese youth. Basie offers to help Jim find his parents, but Jim—infuriated over his friend's death—chooses to stay behind. Jim is eventually found by American soldiers and placed in an orphanage, where he is reunited with his mother and father. 

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A rocket piloted by two astronauts heads out on a mission to Mars. One of them, Marcusson, is a positive thinker who believes that people are alike all over, even on the Red Planet. The other astronaut, Conrad, has a more cynical view of human interplanetary nature. The impact of landing on Mars is so severe that Marcusson is critically injured. Knowing that he is dying, Marcusson pleads with Conrad to open the door of their ship so he can at least see that for which he has given his life. Conrad refuses, still fearful of what may await outside, and Marcusson dies. Now alone, Conrad hears a rhythmic sound reverberating upon the ship's hull. Expecting some unnameable evil, his apprehension turns to joy when he opens the hatch and sees Martians that indeed appear to be human, have mind-reading abilities and give the impression of being most amicable, especially the beautiful Teenya, who welcomes and reassures him. The hospitable locals lead their honored guest to his residence—an interior living space furnished precisely in the same manner as one on Earth (albeit, a living space in 1960s-era middle-class America) would have been. Conrad relaxes, but soon discovers that his room is windowless and the doors cannot be opened. One of the walls slides upward, and Conrad realizes that he has become a caged exhibit in a Martian alien zoo. Conrad picks up a sign that says, "Earth Creature in his native habitat", and throws it on the floor as Teenya tearfully leaves. In the episode's closing lines, Conrad grips the bars and yells to the heavens, "Marcusson! Marcusson, you were right! You were right. People are alike.... people are alike everywhere!" 

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In 1880, an outlaw cowboy named Joe Caswell is about to be hanged for murder. But as the noose tightens around his neck, he suddenly disappears and finds himself in 1960, in the laboratory of Professor Manion. Manion explains that he used a time machine to pluck Caswell from the past. But when Manion sees Caswell's rope burns around his neck, and hears his admission that in his life he had murdered over 20 men, he knows he must try to send Caswell back. The discussion leads to an argument. Caswell attacks Manion, killing him with a desk lamp. He then flees from the laboratory into a busy street, but is overwhelmed by the lights and the noise; he returns to the lab, distraught and desperate. He breaks down, pleading for the dead scientist to help him. A thief named Paul Johnson enters the lab. Caswell fights with Johnson, but Johnson gets the upper hand and strangles Caswell with the cord from the window curtains. As Johnson tries to find Manion's safe, he accidentally activates the time machine and is sent back to 1880, appearing in the noose intended for Caswell, just in time to be hanged. The witnesses to the hanging are shocked to see a stranger's body, in strange clothes, in place of Caswell. They question whether this was the Devil's work or some other power's, and whether they have just executed an innocent man. 

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Bolie Jackson is a washed-up boxer who breaks his knuckles right before a comeback fight. He is knocked down and just about to be counted out, when suddenly, he magically switches places with the other boxer. Bolie is now standing over his vanquished opponent. Bolie celebrates his victory, though he cannot understand what happened. He remembers being knocked down and has no memory of getting back up to win, nor can he figure out why his knuckles feel fine; he figures they must have only been bruised. His manager is stumped as to why Bolie thinks he was knocked down and explains that this did not happen. However, there is one other person who knows Bolie lost. Henry Temple, the young son of Bolie's girlfriend Frances, not only remembers, he also has an explanation for what happened. Henry tells Bolie that he made "the biggest, tallest wish" he could come up with for Bolie, for the two boxers to switch positions, and it came true. Bolie cannot accept this. Henry warns him that the only way the wish can have its power is if you believe in it. If Bolie does not believe, the wish will not work. Bolie tells the boy straight out that life just does not work that way, that he has been wishing all his life and only has scars to show for it. Henry begs him to believe and Bolie insists he cannot. Suddenly, he is returned to the fight; he is down on the canvas. This time the referee finishes counting Bolie out. Neither Bolie nor Henry have any memory of the alternate outcome. Henry remembers making the biggest wish he possibly could for Bolie, but obviously it did not work, so he declares with resignation that he will not be making any more wishes. "There ain't no such thing as magic, is there?", he asks Bolie. "I guess not, Henry", Bolie replies sadly. "Or maybe...maybe there is magic. And maybe there's wishes, too. I guess the trouble is...there's not enough people around to believe..." 

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After robbing a pawn shop, Henry Francis "Rocky" Valentine (Larry Blyden) is shot in a gunfight by a police officer as he tries to flee. He wakes up to find himself seemingly unharmed by the encounter as a genial elderly man named Pip (Sebastian Cabot) greets him. Pip explains that he has been instructed to guide Rocky and give him whatever he desires. Rocky becomes suspicious, thinking that Pip is trying to swindle him, but Pip proves to have detailed information on Rocky's tastes and hobbies. Rocky demands that Pip hand over his wallet; Pip says that he does not carry one, but gives Rocky $700 directly from his pocket and says that he can provide as much money as Rocky wants. Thinking that Pip is trying to entice him to commit a crime, Rocky holds him at gunpoint as the two travel to a luxurious apartment. Pip explains that the apartment and everything in it are free, and Rocky starts to relax. He even picks out a nice suit to change into. However, his suspicions rise up again when a meal is brought in, and he demands that Pip taste it first to prove that it is not poisoned. When Pip demurs, claiming he has not eaten for centuries, Rocky shoots him. When the bullets have no effect, he thinks Pip has a bulletproof vest and shoots him in the head, but the bullets have no effect. Rocky realizes that he is dead, and he concludes that he is in Heaven and Pip is his guardian angel. As Pip says he can have anything he wants, he asks for one million dollars and a beautiful woman. Pip directs him to a desk drawer, which he opens to find his money. The stereo starts to play on its own and a lovely woman dances into view. When Pip asks if there will be anything else, Rocky, dancing with the girl, tells him to stick around. Rocky visits a casino with his three lovely ladies, winning every bet he makes as beautiful girls gather around him, and enjoys being able to torment a policeman after Pip shrinks him. Later, Rocky asks Pip if he can see some of his old friends who have also died, but Pip says that this world is for Rocky alone. Except for the two men, no one in it is real. When Rocky wonders what good deeds he could have done to gain entrance to Heaven, Pip takes him to visit the Hall of Records. Rocky looks through his own file and discovers that it only contains a list of his sins, but decides not to worry about it. Pip leaves him, saying to dial P-I-P on his phone if he needs anything. One month later, Rocky has become bored with having his whims instantly satisfied. He wins every game at the casino, the ladies defer to him and comply with every whim. He calls Pip and asks for a challenge in which he might run the risk of losing. Pip offers to arrange for him to lose once in a while at the casino, but Rocky isn't happy with that – he'd still know it was a set up. It's the same with the girls. When he doesn't have to work at getting them to love him, it's no fun. Pip suggests his old profession and they settle on a bank robbery. When Rocky asks if there's a chance of him getting caught, Pip says he can arrange that, and makes a note of it. Rocky abandons the idea, saying that a pre-planned outcome would take the fun out of the crime. He then tells Pip that he's tired of Heaven, if he has to stay he'll go nuts, and wants to go to "the other place," to which Pip retorts a revelation, "Heaven? Whatever gave you the idea you were in Heaven, Mr. Valentine? This is the other place!" Horrified, Rocky tries in vain to open the now-locked apartment door and escape his "paradise" as Pip laughs malevolently at his torment. 

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A school teacher named Helen Foley finds a strange and very serious young girl named Markie on the stairs outside her apartment. The girl seems to know her and tries to jog her memory about a man she saw earlier that day. The man arrives at Helen's door as Markie, frightened, runs out the back way. The man is Peter Selden, who explains that he worked for Helen's mother when Helen was a child and was the first to find her murdered mother's body. Helen had witnessed the crime but blocked it out. When she mentions Markie, Selden tells her that her nickname was Markie as a child and shows her an old photo of herself. The girl in the photo is identical to the girl Helen met. When Selden leaves, Markie reappears. She tells Helen that she is Helen herself, and that she is there to force her to remember her mother's murder. With the child's prodding, Helen begins to recollect, then Selden returns and confesses to the murder. He tells Helen that he had been about to do away with her that night as well, but could not because her screams had drawn people to the apartment. He has been "keeping tabs" on her because he knew one day she would recall the murder. Helen manages to run into the hallway and, after a struggle, pushes Selden down the stairs to his death. After talking to the police and returning to her apartment, Helen hears a young girl's voice singing the same tune as Markie. To her relief, the girl is just an ordinary girl she does not recognize. She tells the girl she has a lovely smile ... and advises her never to lose it. 

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Gart Williams is a contemporary New York City advertising executive who has grown exasperated with his career. His overbearing boss, Oliver Misrell, angered by the loss of a major account, lectures him about this "push-push-push" business. Unable to sleep properly at home, he drifts off for a short nap on the train during his daily commute through the November snow. He wakes to find the train stopped and that he is now in a 19th-century railway car, deserted except for himself. The sun is bright outside, and as he looks out the window, he discovers that the train is in a town called Willoughby. He eventually learns that it is July 1888. He learns that this is a "peaceful, restful place, where a man can slow down to a walk and live his life full measure". Being jerked awake into the real world, he asks the conductor if he has ever heard of Willoughby, but the conductor replies, "Not on this run...no Willoughby on the line." That night, he has another argument with his shrewish wife Jane. Selfish, cold and uncaring, she makes him see that he is only a money machine to her. He tells her about his dream and about Willoughby, only to have her ridicule him as being "born too late", declaring it her "miserable tragic error" to have married a man "whose big dream in life is to be Huckleberry Finn". The next week, Williams again dozes off on the train and returns to Willoughby where everything is the same as before. As he is about to get off the train carrying his briefcase, the train begins to roll, returning him to the present. Williams promises himself to get off at Willoughby next time. Experiencing a breakdown at work, he calls his wife, who abandons him in his time of need. On his way home, once again he falls asleep to find himself in Willoughby. This time, as the conductor warmly beckons him to the door, Williams intentionally leaves his briefcase on the train. Getting off the train, he is greeted by name by various inhabitants who welcome him while he tells them he's glad to be there and plans to stay and join their idyllic life. The swinging pendulum of the station clock fades into the swinging lantern of a train engineer, standing over Williams' body. The 1960 conductor explains to the engineer that Williams "shouted something about Willoughby", before jumping off the train and being killed instantly. Williams' body is loaded into a hearse. The back door of the hearse closes to reveal the name of the funeral home: Willoughby & Son. 

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Roger Shackleforth is desperately in love with Leila, an aloof tease who plays cat-and-mouse with his affections. A stranger hands him the business card of an old professor named "A. Daemon", who can help with any problem. Roger visits Daemon, who after some resistance and suggestions that Roger will regret it, sells him a love potion for $1. Roger administers it in a glass of champagne; Leila falls madly in love with him and marries him, but soon her love becomes stifling. Roger returns to the professor to buy his "glove cleaner" (really a poison), for $1,000, all of Roger's savings. Daemon cautions Roger that the "cleaner" is odorless, tasteless, and completely undetectable, but must be used immediately and completely, or the user will lose his nerve and never again have the courage to try it. After Roger leaves, the professor muses, "First, the 'stimulant'... and then the 'chaser'." When he gets home, Roger prepares a glass of champagne with the new potion. Just as he is about to give Leila her drink, she reveals that she is pregnant; Roger is shocked and drops both glasses. He tells himself he could not have gone through with it anyway, then passes out. On Roger's terrace, Daemon relaxes with a cigar, and after puffing a smoke ring that turns into a heart, disappears. 

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Joey Crown (Jack Klugman) is a hapless trumpet player in New York City; he has no money, no girlfriend, and no job prospects due to alcoholism. Looking for a chance to work again, he is turned down by the manager at his old club, who while appreciating Joey's abilities, knows how unreliable he is. Joey feels his life is worthless. He sells his beloved trumpet at a pawn shop for cash then, after a drinking binge, impulsively steps into the path of a speeding truck. When he comes to, he realizes that nobody can see or hear him and assumes that he is dead. None of the people he sees are ones he recognizes, though he goes to places with which he is familiar. Joey makes his way back to the night club, where he is surprised to meet another trumpet player (John Anderson) who can not only see him, but also recognizes him. He explains that Joey is in "a kind of limbo"; it is all the people he encountered who are actually dead. He offers Joey a choice to return to the living if he so chooses, while reminding him that he must "take what you get and you live with it". With the man's encouragement, Joey decides that he wants to go back, but first he asks for the man's name and the answer is, "Call me Gabe. Short for Gabriel." Joey wakes up on the street after the collision, and is shaken, but uninjured. The nervous driver of the truck quickly pushes some money into Joey's hand, indicating that his driving record is on the line. Joey buys his trumpet back. Later that night, he is playing the trumpet, alone on his apartment building's roof, when a young woman (Mary Webster) whose laundry is hanging there, approaches him to express her admiration. She introduces herself as Nan, and says that she is new to the city. After seeing that she is romantically interested in him, an excited Joey offers to show her around town. 

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Mr. Bevis loses his job, gets tickets on his car (which inadvertently hooks bumpers with another vehicle and, once pulled away, flips over), and gets evicted from his apartment - all in one day. Bevis then meets and gets assistance from his guardian angel, one J. Hardy Hempstead. Bevis gets to start the day over again, except now he is a success at work, his rent is paid and his personal transportation is now a sportscar (Austin-Healey) instead of his previous jalopy, a soot-spewing 1924 Rickenbacker. But there is a catch. In order to continue in his new life, Bevis must make some changes: no strange clothes, no loud zither music, no longer can he be the well-liked neighborhood goofball. Realizing all these things are what makes him happy, Bevis asks that things be returned to the way they were. Hempstead obliges, initially warning Bevis that he will still have no job, car, or apartment. However, perhaps moved by the warmth people have for Bevis, and the man's genuine kindness, the angel arranges for him to get his old jalopy back. In the final scene of the episode, Mr. Bevis is shown finishing his fifth shot of whiskey, and he pays his total tab of $5.00 with one bill. He then leaves the bar; his Rickenbacker is parked in front of a fire hydrant. When Bevis is about to be ticketed for this infraction, the hydrant suddenly disappears and reappears next to the officer's motorcycle. 'J. Hardy Hempstead' is still watching over Bevis. 

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Marsha White (Anne Francis), browsing for a gift for her mother in a department store, decides on a gold thimble. She's taken by the elevator man to the ninth floor, although the elevator's floor indicator only shows eight floors. She walks out onto the ninth floor and turns to complain to the elevator operator that there's nothing there, but the door closes abruptly, leaving her to ponder her situation. As she wanders around, confused, she's approached by a saleslady who guides her to the only item on the floor: the exact gold thimble that Marsha wants. During the sales transaction, she grows increasingly puzzled by the comments and actions of both the male elevator operator who transported her to the barren, seemingly deserted floor, and the aloof and clairvoyant female salesclerk behind the counter who addresses her by name and sells her the thimble. The sales lady asks Marsha if she's happy; Marsha responds that it's not the sales lady's business. The sales lady appears surprised and insulted, and Marsha leaves. As Marsha rides the elevator down, she notices that the thimble is scratched and dented; she's directed by the elevator operator to the Complaints Department on the third floor. When she tries to convince Mr. Armbruster, the sales supervisor, and Mr. Sloan, the store manager, that she bought the item on the ninth floor, she's told that the store doesn't have a ninth floor. She has no evidence of the transaction as she paid cash, and has no receipt. Marsha believes she spots the salesclerk who sold her the thimble, and is shocked to discover that the woman is not a salesclerk at all; she's one of the department store's display mannequins. While resting in an office after the shock of her frightening discovery, Marsha finds herself accidentally locked inside the closed store (after hours). She attempts to find a way out and becomes alarmed by mysterious voices calling to her and by some subtle movements made by the supposedly lifeless mannequins around her. Moving about aimlessly, she topples the sailor mannequin, whom she recognizes as the somewhat frustrated elevator operator in earlier encounters. Becoming hysterical, she flees backward to the now-open elevator, which again transports her to the unoccupied ninth floor. There she gradually realizes that the "ninth floor" is a storage area occupied by thinking, animated mannequins. With the mannequins' gentle encouragement, she eventually realizes that she herself is also a mannequin. Within their society, the mannequins take turns, one at a time, to live among humans for one month. Marsha had enjoyed her stay among "the outsiders" so much that she had forgotten her identity and has arrived back a day late. Now that she's returned, the next mannequin in line — the female salesclerk — departs the store to live among humans for 30 days. As the other mannequins bid farewell to the salesclerk, the sailor asks Marsha if she enjoyed her time among humans. Sweetly and sadly, she replies, "Ever so much fun... Ever so much fun." She and the sailor assume "mannequin" postures, and grow rigid. The next day, Mr. Armbruster is making his energetic morning rounds on the sales floor and does a double-take upon passing the mannequin of Marsha White on display. The final shot moves in on her, and then her face, which fades into the stars as the closing narration begins. 

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"Mouth" McGarry, the manager of a broken-down baseball team called the Hoboken Zephyrs on its last legs, allows a robot named Casey to play on his team. Casey has the ability to throw super-fast balls that cannot be hit. Eventually, after Casey is beaned by a ball and given a physical examination, the National League finds out and rules that Casey must be taken off the team because he is not human. Casey's inventor, Dr. Stillman, gives him an artificial heart to have him classified as human. But with a heart, Casey now has human emotions. He refuses to throw his fast balls anymore, saying that he feels empathy with the batter and does not want to ruin the batter's career by striking him out, and quits baseball to become a social worker. With the team sure to fold soon, Dr. Stillman gives McGarry Casey's blueprints as a souvenir. Glancing at them, McGarry suddenly has a brilliant idea, as he runs off after Dr. Stillman to tell him his idea. Rumors later surface intimating that McGarry has used the blueprints to build a world-champion team of Casey robots. 

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Coming home, Victoria West (Phyllis Kirk) spots her husband, playwright Gregory West (Keenan Wynn), through the window sharing a drink, and flirting in his study with Mary (Mary LaRoche), an attractive, affectionate young woman. Mr. West quickly destroys a tape, which displeases Mary. When Victoria barges into the room, Mary is nowhere to be found. Victoria looks around the room for hints of where she might have gone but does not yet confront him. Soon, she questions him. Gregory denies everything until Victoria throws in a trick, which causes Mr. West to admit the truth. Victoria is furious, but Gregory explains to his wife that any character that he describes into his dictation machine will appear according to his description. To make the character disappear, all he has to do is cut out that portion of the tape and throw it into his fireplace. Victoria doesn't believe him and is ready to divorce him and commit him to an asylum. Gregory demonstrates his power, summoning Mary again and "uncreating" her, but not before Mary requests that Gregory not bring her back again, as she has grown weary of her segmented existence. Appalled, Victoria tries to escape, but Gregory uses his power to summon an elephant to stop her. Gregory discovered this talent when a male character he had put a great deal of effort and attention into approached him as a real flesh-and-blood person with his own independent will, shook his hand and thanked him. Believing none of this (despite seeing and hearing the elephant), Victoria tells Gregory that he is insane and she is going to have him committed. In response, Gregory pulls a section of tape from his safe and explains that it contains her description, revealing her to be one of his creations, but that recently she has begun to exert her own independence from him. Refusing to believe him, Victoria snatches the tape away from him and throws it into the fire, and promptly begins to feel faint. "You don't mean you were telling the truth?! You were right!" she cries, and disappears as the flames consume the tape. Frantic, Gregory rushes to his dictation machine and begins to re-describe Victoria. He quickly reconsiders and instead describes Mrs. Mary West as his wife. Mary reappears and fixes her husband a drink, apparently lacking any memory of her previous interval of existence. Rod Serling begins his closing narration, only to find himself part of Gregory's storytelling (see below). 

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In the future, humanity uses time travel to construct Eternity, an organization "outside time" which aimed to improve human happiness by observing human history and, after careful analysis, directly making small actions that cause "reality changes", as well as to help establish trade between the various centuries to help those in most need. Its members, known as "Eternals" and by the roles they hold, prioritize the reduction of human suffering, at the cost of a loss to technology, art, and other endeavors which are prevented from existing when judged to have a detrimental effect. Those enlisted travel "upwhen" and "downwhen" and re-enter time in devices called "kettles". Their rules prevent them from earlier travel to the Primitive times before the 27th century, when the temporal field powering Eternity was established, to prevent accidental damage to pre- temporal history. Also, humanity's fate is unknown - the earth is empty by the 150,000th century, but this is preceded by a period called the Hidden Centuries from the 70,000th–150,000th centuries in which for unknown reasons they cannot access the world outside Eternity to learn more. Andrew Harlan is an Eternal and an outstanding Technician - a specialist at implementing reality changes - who is fascinated by the Primitive times. Senior Computer Laban Twissell, the Dean of the Allwhen Council, instructs Harlan to teach a newcomer, Brinsley Sheridan Cooper, about the Primitive. During this time, Harlan is also tasked by Assistant Computer Finge to spend a week in the 482nd century. He stays with Noÿs Lambent, a non-Eternal member of the period's aristocracy, and falls in love with her. However, he discovers that a reality change is due to affect the century and, wishing to preserve Noÿs as she is, he breaks Eternal law and removes her from time, hiding her in the empty sections of Eternity that exist in the Hidden Centuries. Harlan later finds that the kettles will not travel to the time he hid Noÿs due to a mysterious block at the 100,000th century. He confronts Finge with a weapon, accusing him of sabotaging matters out of jealousy; but Finge states he has reported Harlan's conduct and denies placing the block. Harlan is summoned to the Council but is not reprimanded; he deduces that because his transgressions were ignored, he must be there to serve a larger purpose. Harlan confronts Twissell and explains that he has been teaching himself temporal mathematics and believes that its 23rd century inventor, Vikkor Mallansohn, must have been helped in his discovery by someone from his future; he concludes that his current role is training Cooper to do this. Twissell confirms this, adding that unknown to Cooper, Mallansohn's secret memoirs show that Cooper will take over Mallansohn's role and in effect, become Mallansohn. This must be kept from Cooper, so that Eternity will be founded as it historically was. Harlan blackmails Twissell by threatening to destroy Cooper's ignorance unless Noÿs is returned, but is outwitted; Twissell locks him in the control room with all controls deactivated other than the lever to send Cooper back - matching the memoir's statement that this was his role. Harlan, enraged, breaks open the controls and changes the power output, causing Cooper to be sent back to an unknown point estimated to be in the early 20th century. Twissell is aghast, but as Eternity still exists, he theorizes he can undo Harlan's damage, and send Cooper back correctly for his mission. They think Cooper might try to communicate using an advertisement in one of Harlan's Primitive magazines that would only stand out to an Eternal. Harlan finds a magazine from 1932 has changed, and now shows an advert in the form of a mushroom cloud, something no human could have known of in 1932. However, Harlan refuses to tell Twissell about the advertisement until they bring Noÿs back from the Hidden Centuries, though Twissell insists the block Harlan encountered is theoretically impossible. As the two travel far upwhen to discover what has happened, Twissell speculates that the Hidden Centuries might be a time when humans evolved into something greater, and that they may have blocked off that time - and placed the block at the 100,000th century - to prevent Eternity from interfering with them. Harlan and Twissell pass the 100,000th century unhindered and find Noÿs. Harlan then agrees to travel downwhen and bring back Cooper, so he can be sent to the correct time for his mission - but only if Noÿs comes with him. On arrival in 1932, Harlan holds Noÿs at gunpoint, revealing that he suspects her of being from the Hidden Centuries, and that he has brought her so that she could not harm Eternity. Noÿs acknowledges she is from that time, and explains that her people had also developed time travel but their method shows many possible futures rather than just one future as seen by Eternity. They learned that humans would have been the first species to spread into the universe, but in each future where Eternity existed, safety was given a priority and by the time humans reached the stars, other species predominated and prevented this. As a result, humanity would become depressed and gradually die out. Noÿs' mission was to make the minimum change to history to remedy this - to prevent Eternity from ever being founded. There were multiple ways of achieving this, and she chose an approach in which she and Harlan were together. Noÿs gives Harlan the choice of killing her and preserving Eternity, or letting her live and allowing a different future to arise. Harlan, remembering the unhealthy interpersonal relationships between the Eternals, and the sociological damage he has seen done to people whose original "homewhen" had ceased to exist, begins to agree with her. Suddenly, a reality change occurs; the kettle disappears, indicating that Eternity now never happened. The book ends by stating that this was "the end of Eternity - and the beginning of Infinity". 

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In the Sonoran Desert, French scientist Claude Lacombe, his American interpreter, cartographer David Laughlin, and other researchers, discover Flight 19, a squadron of Grumman TBM Avengers that went missing more than 30 years earlier. The planes are intact and appear to function perfectly, but are empty. An elderly witness claims "the sun came out at night, and sang to him." The lost ship SS Cotopaxi is discovered in the Gobi Desert. Air traffic controllers watch two airline flights narrowly avoid a mid-air collision with an unidentified flying object (UFO). Three-year-old Barry Guiler wakes to find his toys operating on their own. Following something, he runs outside, forcing his mother, Jillian, to chase him. Investigating one of a series of large- scale power outages, electrical lineman Roy Neary experiences a close encounter with a UFO, when it flies over his truck and lightly burns the side of his face with its bright lights. The UFO, joining a group of three other UFOs, is pursued by Neary and three police cars, but the spacecraft fly off into the night sky. Roy becomes fascinated by UFOs, much to the dismay of his wife, Ronnie. He also becomes increasingly obsessed with subliminal, mental images of a mountain-like shape and begins to make models of it. Jillian also becomes obsessed with sketching a unique-looking mountain. Soon after, she is terrorized in her home by a UFO which descends from the clouds. The presence of the UFO energy field makes every appliance in Jillian's house malfunction and Barry is abducted by unseen beings. Lacombe and Laughlin—along with a group of United Nations experts—continue to investigate increasing UFO activity and strange, related occurrences. Witnesses in Dharamsala, India report that the UFOs make distinctive sounds: a five-tone musical phrase in a major scale. Scientists broadcast the phrase to outer space, but are mystified by the response: a seemingly meaningless series of numbers (104 44 30 40 36 10) repeated over and over until Laughlin, with his background in cartography, recognizes it as a set of geographical coordinates, which point to Devils Tower near Moorcroft, Wyoming. Lacombe and the U.S. military converge on Wyoming. The United States Army evacuates the area, planting false reports in the media that a train wreck has spilled a toxic nerve gas, all the while preparing a secret landing zone for the UFOs and their occupants. Meanwhile, Roy's increasingly erratic behavior causes Ronnie to become upset and leave him, taking their three children with her. When a despairing Roy inadvertently sees a television news program about the train wreck near Devils Tower, he realizes the mental image of a mountain plaguing him is real. Jillian sees the same broadcast, and she and Roy, as well as others with similar visions and experiences, travel to the site in spite of the public warnings about nerve gas. While most of the civilians who are drawn to the site are apprehended by the Army, Roy and Jillian persist and make it to the site just as dozens of UFOs appear in the night sky. The government specialists at the site begin to communicate with the UFOs by use of light and sound on a large electrical billboard. Following this, an enormous mother ship lands at the site, releasing animals and over a dozen long-missing adults and children, all from different past eras. Among these returned abductees include the missing pilots from Flight 19 and sailors from the Cotopaxi, all of whom have strangely not aged since their abductions. Barry is also returned and reunited with a relieved Jillian. The government officials decide to include Roy in a group of people whom they have selected to be potential visitors to the mothership, and hastily prepare him. As the aliens finally emerge from the mothership, they select Roy to join them on their travels. As Roy enters the mothership, one of the aliens pauses for a few moments with the humans. Lacombe uses Curwen hand signs that correspond to the five-note alien tonal phrase. The alien replies with the same gestures, smiles, and returns to its ship, which ascends into space. 

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Darby O'Gill and his daughter Katie live together in the small Irish town of Rathcullen. Darby works as the caretaker of an estate owned by Lord Fitzpatrick and tries to catch a tribe of leprechauns, particularly their king, Brian Connors. Lord Fitzpatrick retires Darby, replacing him with a young Dubliner named Michael McBride. Darby begs Michael not to tell Katie he is replacing him, and he reluctantly agrees. While chasing Fitzpatrick's horse Cleopatra, who is actually a pooka, Darby is captured by Brian and the leprechauns and brought to their mountain lair, Knocknasheega. Darby learns Brian has brought him to the mountain to avoid his secret getting out to Katie, but Darby cannot leave Knocknasheega as a consequence. Darby escapes by tricking the leprechauns into leaving the mountain by playing "The Fox Chase" on a violin Brian loaned him. Expecting Brian to pursue him, Darby traps him in a drinking game with a jug of poitín, allowing him to capture the leprechaun at sunrise when his magic has no effect. Since Darby caught him, Brian gives him three wishes, granting his first for Brian to stay at his side for two weeks or until Darby runs out of wishes. Brian tricks Darby into using his second wish to draw the enamored Katie and Michael closer together. Pony Sugrue, the town bully, learns of Michael's new job and decides to take it and Katie for himself. He has his mother Sheelah tell Katie of Darby's joblessness, causing her to angrily confront Darby and Michael. Katie discovers Cleopatra and chases her to Knocknasheega, but Darby finds her stricken with a fever. A banshee appears and summons the Dullahan on a death coach to take Katie's soul away, but Darby uses his third wish to take his daughter's place. To save Darby, Brian tricks him into voicing regret that he will not have Brian for company in the afterlife, which counts as a fourth wish. Since Darby can only make three wishes, all his wishes are rendered void, freeing him from the death coach. He returns to Katie, who makes a full recovery. Michael confronts and humiliates Pony at the pub, and he and Katie begin a relationship together with Darby's approval. 

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